— Ehiguese, CILT boss
He is the first academician, (that is apart from the Rector of Maritime, MAN, Oron Mr. Nsenyen Ebong) to feature on this page. Since last week when the first part of this encounter was published, we have received requests from Mr. Ehiguese’s contemporaries in the industry wanting to be my guest. We appreciate the interests and we shall get back to you after allowing other stakeholders to also have their say on other issues. Once again, thank you.
Let me tell you, the vice president of CILT international came here and said to us “your transport system is the worst all over the world”.
Do you agree with that?
Why wont I, I have travelled to other parts of the world, even Ghana. I went to their office and they said that Nigeria should come and understudy the transport system of Ghana and their urban transportation.
What are we saying?
You haven’t answered my question as to whether the Nigerian Shippers’ Council has what it takes to transform into the National Transport Commission
If the present function of the Nigerian Shippers Council tilts more towards the private sector, why not? But don’t call that body transport commission. If the Nigerian Shippers’ Council will transform into such a body, that body should be known as the regulatory council; something like: transport economic regulatory council, not national transport commission; it’s going to be transport sector economic regulation council. It will come in and look at the various aspect from the price control to quantify and qualify the services rendered by the various aspect of the transport industry and come up with something like – ok: for the consumer, this is a fair price, for the supplier of services this is a fair deal, for the government this should be a fair deal, you know, what you give to the government, just like what I heard today that the minister of finance announced that there is a reduction in tariff to the tune of 30 per cent, then I now asked- is it the former 30 per cent that has been there or another 30 per cent to make it 60 per cent? But I am sure that the concessionaires will complain because, we know the meaning of that. If we have an economic regulatory body in the transport sub- sector, it will look at the service providers and all the services they provide, but if you are telling me you want to bring a bogus transport commission that will be the midwife between the parastatals and the industry, forget it, its not going to work. We should take these things little by little and bite what we can chew.
What aspect of the Cabotage law will you want the government to amend?
You see, Sesan, incidentally I did some work on Cabotage and I will be speaking from that position. I try to look at the time when the Cabotage law was enacted, the letter and the spirit behind the Cabotage law was actually to liberate Nigerians from the clutches of foreign domination, solely in our domestic coastal trade. What is Cabotage in the first place? It is nothing other than that the indigenes of such a country using the facilities built or owned by them to freight or carry the cargoes and passengers generated within its coastal space without the participation of foreign interests. When I look at some of the data I got from NIMASA, when I look at the distribution, as well as the various vessels, that is, the supply vessels, the tug boats and other specialized crafts, the total vessels registered from then to 2006 that I have is 674 vessels. Out of these, Nigerian vessels or water crafts do not account for much; so in terms of quantity, we can say oh yes there are a lot of vessels registered, but when it comes to size and quality, forget it. What I discovered from my study or from the data I analyzed from what NIMASA gave is that Nigerian vessels in terms of carriage capacity are less than 20 per cent. Now, let’s look at what NNPC raised in 2004-2006, they told us that annually, the oil trade market account for not less than US$250 million and out of this, Nigerian vessels account for only 12 per cent, so where are we? Now the major point of the matter is that, rather than allow the letters and spirit of Cabotage Act to work, a particular clause in the Cabotage law has flawed everything and that is the waver clause. We have shot ourselves in the leg, when I saw it there, I said there is a problem, because I know that, that aspect will be exploited, I agree that we don’t have the facilities, the capacity, even the competency is not also there, but having said that, Sesan, the way that particular clause have been exploited that even when we have Nigerian vessels, even when they have the facilities, even when they have the competency, they are sidelined by the multi nationals that own these products, so what are we talking about? They are using the instrument of waiver, clause to exploit Nigerians.
I am surprised to hear this, because even the immediate past minister of state, water transportation said he never granted any waiver, so who has been granting them?
Well, from what we have been hearing in the industry and from the confirmation of those who are directly involved, that can not be true. I remember at one of those events in Lagos, Chief Isaac Jolapamo (ISAN Chairman) told us that the waiver clause has been used to short-change Nigerians, I remember also that the other day barrister Jean Chiazor –Anishere affirmed that Cabotage has been abused. I am hearing from them and that is what I am using for my assessment, I have not really gone to the industry to really find out what is on. But, if truly, waivers are not being granted, how come these foreign vessels are operating on our waters, if they say they have not granted, under what law are these vessels operating, what of those vessels registered under Cabotage law with NIMASA? After the temporary registration which last for one year, all those vessels are supposed to be registered under the Cabotage law. We don’t expect to have temporary registration for long.
Are you advocating that the waiver clause should be removed?
No, it will be wrong to say remove the waiver clause that will be unrealistic, because, where we don’t have the facility or the competency what then do we do? My answers will be: let us implement that clause only when we can not supply the required facility and we don’t have the competency. That is what I will advice.
The port concession exercise is in its third year, will you say it a success story?
Well, on my visit to the ports, I saw some physical developments, but I want to use this occasion to say something about my visit to the terminal which belongs to ENL Consortium during those dark days of the company; sometime last year. I must say that we have people with black minds in Nigeria; very destructive people. Whoever led that group of destroyers does not mean well for this nation and the maritime industry in particular. The destroyers were using hammers to break even the cars and everything that they could see. I took photographs of it. I heard Comrade Onikolease Irabor saying that he was not involved and I begin to imagine, for this man to speak out anything, has he gone there? And you know, the way he came out defending the dock workers was amazing. I thought any man of conscience will condemn what was done to ENL Consortium. It’s condemnable. But, having said that, the involvement of the private sector has not favoured the importers, we need to look into that. The concessionaires are still accusing NPA of still exploiting them through some dues and charges that NPA allegedly imposes on the concessionaires. And on the part of the concessionaires, the way they are doing goods transfer or cargo transfer to the bonded warehouses without the authority of the cargo owner and thereafter coming to charge them for demurrages and some other kind of charges is also not fair because on the bill of lading, the contract is that the port of destination is Apapa or Tin Can and that is where I am going to take my goods from you from the ship and now you are subjecting me to one warehouse in Ikeja, or Oregun and you want me to pay. But, generally, I will say that the port reform is better, we need to sustain it because if you look at what has happened today to the Nigerian ports system, to an extent you can predict your cargo arrival and delivery, pilferage has reduced drastically unlike before when you bring in a car and you can’t be sure that the headlights will be there, but today that is no longer the case, you can get your car to Nigeria without being vandalised except your car has been vandalized before it got to Nigeria. That is to tell you that government property is nobody’s property, government enterprise does not belong to anybody but when it is private, (it is my own and I protect it. If I am bringing a car to the port and I know that when I get there its going to land at Grimaldi terminal and I know that I am going to get my car intact, I will rather go there and pay more than go to another were my car will be vandalized. So, these are just the issue. So I think privatization or the port reform should be sustained. Nigerian Ports Authourity should restrict itself to its regulatory role and its oversight functions The NPA should sustain and improve on the harbour services that they are rendering, because it is common user facility that we are looking at. Actually, all common user facilities should be sustained by the Nigerian Port Authourity until we have developed to a certain point whereby a number of the concessionaires can actually afford to get it done or else there will be problems and the common user facility will suffer and it will also impact negatively on the government and the concessionaires.
In specific terms, how do you intend to curb the malaise in CILT?
CILT Nigeria has decided to delete names of members who are not in good standing, that is people who are not up-to-date in all their financial obligations and those who are not holding on to the ethical standards of the institute. Having said that, we are also posting the names of current members to the web, the address is www.ciltnig.org. All the names of current members will be placed there, those that are not current, we will also put there for about one month and if they fail to regularize, we will delete them from our membership register. We also want to tell those who need to re-verify their membership to do so without delay, because we are withdrawing certificates from those people who were awarded certificates but are not qualified and I think we have about 60 that we are withdrawing, we are writing them to withdraw those certificates because they do not merit it. There are those that we also found out that even though they are holding the certificates, they are not proactive, they are docile, and they have been holding the certificates for so long particularly chartered members. If you are a chartered member and we found out that you are not current, we have designed a system, it is a point- rating system that will be reducing your rating and when it gets to zero, we withdraw your certificate. That action is on-going. So, members should know that it is no longer the way it was.
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