Steve Agbota
President Mohammed Buhari, came to power on May 29, 2015 with the hope of reforming and transforming the nation’s economy. The President hinted that his administration would be committed to diversifying the economy by focusing more on the non-oil economy.
There were indeed high expectations as the Nigerian business community especially operators in the maritime sector jubilated at his coming. They believed the messiah had come to end their woes and empower them to grow the industry. But four years down the line, many are lamenting that much of the expectations in the maritime sector were not met by Buhari’s administration.
Today, Nigeria is missing in the global maritime space as the absence of a Nigerian shipping company in the container shipping business is chiefly attributable to the absence of government support and a harsh operating environment.
Stakeholders who spoke with Daily Sun, for instance lamented that the maritime sector wasneglected in the past four years, and is now seriously bleeding, terribly bastardised and almost going to collapse. Cargo examinations in the ports remained 100 per cent manual for a very long time in this country because the scanners provided were being wilfully destroyed.
On the ease of doing business on trade across border ranking index, which actually has to do with the core components of the ports, import, export and transit and regulatory procedures, Nigeria is ranked 183 out of 190 countries and the last in Africa.
Now, over 70 per cent of Nigerian cargoes were been presently diverted to neighbouring countries such as Ghana, Togo, Benin Republic and Cameroon due to all sort of illegal charges.
The Nigerian ports had poor infrastructure (roads, rail, quay, buildings, equipment, and yard) and were heavily congested leading to insecurity and pilferage, delays in cargo clearance and inefficiencies in cargo handling largely due to manual processes.
However, non-oil export sector losing over $15 billion annually due to Apapa gridlock situation, as exporters repatriation proceeds to Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) witnessed a sharp drop and over 10,000 jobs was lost in the sector.”
Daily Sun learnt that the gridlock in Apapa was costing the government estimated N140 billion in revenue weekly and the economy losing more than N20 billion daily. And in the last four years, almost 800 companies have closed down as result of gridlock and harsh operating environment in the maritime sector.
Speaking with Daily Sun on telephone, a maritime expert and spokesperson of the Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN), Bolaji Akinola said that the President is a very committed leader and give his best for the country. He said for the maritime sector much has not been achieved in the past four years.
He added: “Now that is not to say the President did not try, he did his best but unfortunately; very little progress has been made in the maritime sector. I hope his second time, will see the sector move forward much better in a bit faster. The President inherited and dilapidated ports access roads, Apapa gridlock, lack of truck parks and proliferation of tank farms in Apapa, all those are problems inherited in 2015. We expected that by now those problems would have been resolved.”
According to him, up till now, there is still high level of importation of petroleum into Nigeria. Unfortunately, four years after, Nigeria is still not refining and the implication of that importation is that tank farms will continue to be in Apapa as trucks and tankers will continue to storm Apapa everyday and contribute to damaging the roads and creating gridlock in the port city.
He said the President has failed his campaign promise in 2014/2015, that his administration would reverse the import duty on vehicles, which rose from 10 per cent to 35 per cent plus additional 35 per cent surcharge, making it to 70 per cent tariff on imported vehicles.
He said the policy only aid smuggling of vehicles into Nigeria because importers find that 70 per cent duty on imported vehicles unnecessarily high where neighbouring countries charges 10 per cent and less. He added that importers would rather go and land their vehicles in the ports of neighbouring countries and smuggle them into the country.
He said there is need for Buhari to reduce the import duty on vehicle, cut it back to what it was from 35 per cent, effective 70 per cent, take it back to 10 per cent. Saying Nigerians will start importing through the nation ports and smuggling will reduce.
However, he urged Buhari to fix bad roads leading to the ports in Apapa both the Tin Can-Oshodi Expressway, the Wharf road and other roads leading to Onne port, in Port Harcourt within his first year in office.
Meanwhile, National President of National Council of Managing Directors of Customs Licensed Agents (NCMDCLA), Lucky Amiwero said not only the maritime sector is bleeding but is almost crumbling to a halt.
He said for four good years, the maritime sector supposed to have provided 500 to one million jobs if all indices are applied. He bemoaned the maritime sector has suffered severe set back and it is almost going to collapse.
He added: “For now, if you look at the gridlock, it actually has contributed almost 70 per cent of the obstacles and inherent vice in the system. If you go to Apapa now, you will notice that a lot of companies has moved out of Apapa and closed up. This past four years has witnessed a serious setback in the maritime sector.
“Government is just paying lip services to the whole thing because things have not been done properly. The ports have not been develop. This is a port that is run without a holding bay, no trailer parks and we have four ports concentrated in Lagos and these four ports control almost 80 per cent of cargo throughput that is actually brought in into the country. So you have revenue base and nothing is being done.”
He lamented that nobody can experience what Nigerians are currently going through in Ghana. Ghana do not have the kind of cargo Nigeria has because Ngeria controls up to 70 and 85 per cent of cargo within the subregion.
Said he: “These countries within the subregion are building their ports for Nigeria cargoes. For instance, Ghana has taken over our transit, Togo has taken over our transhipment, Chad, Niger and Cameroon have taken over our domestic cargo and there is free trade from those areas. Co’ldvoire too is becoming a transhipment port. So we are having transhipment within Togo, Cameroon, Ghana and Benin Republic. All these things were as a result of the management of the maritime sector on the port level.”
The National Vice President, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Dr Kayode Farinto said that that this government actually neglected maritime sector in the last four years.
He noted: “We have dilapidated roads, we have not really tap into the ease of doing business. It is actually difficult in doing business and we have situation where there is no consistence policy. We have situation where most of the International best practices we actually imbibe was gone into mess like issue of customs.
“You will agree with me that nobody can precisely say what it takes to get the cargo out of the port and when you even succeed in getting this cargo out of the port, there are over 10 check points of customs intercepting containers that have duly released from the port. This is actually took us back 1000 steps backward with what we have achieved before where we are now.”
According to him, the psyche of everybody has been militarised just because Nigeria does not have a career officer as the Controller General of Customs because the career officer will know that everything must be done in line with the International best practice.
He stated that, “the maritime industry in the last four years has been seriously neglected, we hope that this next level of government will give it a serious concentration. And how would they do that? The first thing is to appoint SSA on maritime to the Presidency. The SSA will be able to give the Government concerned information about the industry.
He hinted: “There are many issues that have been neglected in the last four years. The Government needs to buckle up. In our neighbouring countries and in ideal situation, there is no where you will allow foreigners to have access to your ports, let alone clearing cargo out of your ports. The are series of them in Cotonou port, but they don’t have access to their port let alone clearing cargo out of their port. We now have a situation where Lebanese, Indian and Chinese have taking over of clearing and forwarding in our ports.
“90 per cent of jobs have been lost to those foreigners. That is why you see that most of the sabotaging drugs been arrested was a result of this foreigners because they are the one that will ship it, they will clear it, warehouse and sell it. You know the security implications, look at the arms and amunitions that were discovered. There are too many things Government needs to do holistically for us to move forward in the maritime sector.”