Steve Agbota, [email protected]
Corruption an endemic scourge in Nigeria, has become quite widespread across the nation’s business landscape thus stunting the nation’s socio-economic growth, with a serious deleterious impact on its trading and import-export market.
Economists and financial analysts have on different foras pointed out that no sector of the Nigeria’s economy is free of corruption. Despite measures being put in place to combat this menace, government revenue is still being short-changed.
With Nigeria’s ports still being regarded as one of the major source of government’s revenue, the sector still remains vulnerable to corrupt practices due to assortment of political and behavioural factors that allow corruption to flourish without any real penalties.
For instance, corruption and exercise of discretionary powers by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and other port officials has had vast implications on the ease of doing business in Nigerian seaports and terminals. This has resulted to revenue loss of about N2.5 trillion in the ports sector annually, according to the report by Integrity Organisation Limited, GTE and its private sector facing arm, Convention on Business Integrity (CBI).
Daily Sun learnt that 20 per cent of the United States of America Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is generated from their ports, but no one can even measure that for Nigeria because of corrupt practices, infrastructural decay and other problems facing the ports system.
Investigations reveal that Customs officials have enormous discretionary power and this can easily be exploited for pecuniary gains including gratifications and bribes. Customs officials and other port officers have influence on ports operations by law and function in state bureaucracy, with which they can manipulate either as enablers or disablers depending on interests per time.
For instance, the fact that they (Customs Officials) have full information on shipments, shippers and have the powers of assessments and valuation make them to be able to manipulate ports processes if they so desire. Unfortunately, Customs officials and port operators function at the supply side of the system and are very influential in manipulating the system for and/or against the demand side of port users.
According to a recent report by CBI, even though not as statutorily discretionary as Customs officers, port officials like port gate officials, stevedores, document clerks, and scanner agents also have influence on the demand side and can manipulate the system in manners that trade-off efficiency.
The report, which was jointly funded by ActionAid and UK Aid, revealed that negative operational elements had pushed many customers to now use ports and terminals of neighbouring countries, thereby leading to loss of foreign exchange earnings for Nigeria.
The report added that, “ports and terminal officials enjoy exercise of wide discretionary powers even when these are in conflict with the legal procedures and processes. These discretionary powers are sometimes indiscriminate, bridge port processes, lead to bottlenecks and create fertile ground for corruption and graft and the procedures become convoluted.
To tackle corruption and improved service quality at Nigerian seaports and terminals, the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN) in association with the Convention on Business Integrity (CBI), and the Business Action Against Corruption (BAAC) said there is need to create awareness on the newly harmonised port Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and a Port Service Support Portal (PSSP) in order to standardise all cargo handling and import-export operations.
Speaking at a roundtable session on Service Delivery at the Nigerian Ports last week, Head, Collective Action and Partnerships, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, MACN, Mr Vivek Menon, said restated the need to have a single brochure that would contain information of the port for shippers, so that their functions would not be contrary to proceedings and reduce corruption in the port.
He stated that maritime should be transparent for the benefit of all in the society, and so there should be constant updates on the proceedings in the port.
Said he: “There should be collaboration with government and locals, with information passed freely; and this will help in the ease of doing business with standard procedures. The purpose of MACN was to raise awareness on the work that local authorities are doing as regards ensuring that things are done in good standard procedure in the ports.”
He therefore emphasised the importance of the maritime sector and its trade as economic catalyst for growth. On standard procedures, he stated that there are procedures for ship crew to use that depends on the country, which are regularly updated to allow for efficient port operations and monitoring to tackle corruption in the ports.
Director, Public Enlightenment ICPC and also the chair of the Project Steering Committee Ports Supports Service, Mrs. Rasheedat Okoduwa, said that the vision of ICPC and government is to reduce corruption to the barest minimum, adding that the Buhari administration is supporting anti-corruption and stakeholders need to support the government to stem corruption.
She added: “One of the problems in the ports is the agencies themselves and Customs licensing procedures and sanctioning for those agencies because many of those agents are front companies for officials currently working with the Customs or even former officials with the Customs that is the fact.
“Because of that, they know how to manipulate the system to their own corrupt advantage. This is not something that should be happening among the officials.”
However, the CEO of CBI, Mr. Soji Apampa, said the organisation (CBI) carried out a study among ship/vessel captains and the outcome of the survey showed a high demand for illicit payments from ship captains at the local ports and terminals.
He added that standard procedure for operations at seaports were known but were more prominent in their breach.
He therefore suggested that all the port users need to have all-inclusive approach to communication that would lead to change in the port’s culture. He also emphasised the importance of ports Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to achieve necessary progress in the port service delivery.
Head, Technical Unit on Government and Anti-Corruption Reforms (TUGAR), Ms Lilian Ekeanyanwu, said there is a need for a clear vision on how corruption issues should be tackled at the ports, saying that the expectations of TUGAR is to have Nigerian ports that are transparent, efficient and free of corruption.
According to her, the Nigerian government is working assiduously to ensure that the ports are free of corruption to improve port service quality given that if Nigeria has efficient ports, it will affect the economy positively.