Steve Agbota, [email protected] 08033302331
Though, the President Buhari administration did not impact Nigeria’s maritime sector as expected by stakeholders in the last four years, he has never stopped telling all that care to listen that his administration is poised to reposition the maritime sector “as the country’s main economic driver and fulcrum for diversification.”
Based on government’s promises to reform and reposition the sector, Nigerians have continued to express concern that the maritime sector is still bedeviled with several challenges that appear impossible to resolve.
However, government’s awareness of the sector’s tremendous capacity to drive sustainable national development has not even inspired extensive and constructive reforms, restructuring and repositioning so far. Instead it is still under performing.
Nigeria’s maritime domain is currently faced with infrastructure deficit, including bad roads leading to gridlock, absence of trailer parks, congestion, multiple charges by government agencies, corruption, high cost of doing business, and inexplicable delays in clearance of cargoes among others.
Despite signing several executive order on Ease of Doing Business on trade across border, which actually has to do with the core components of the ports, import, export and transit and regulatory procedures, Nigeria still ranks 182 out of 190 countries and almost the last in Africa.
Today, Nigeria is missing in the global maritime space with the absence of a national shipping company in the container shipping business which is chiefly attributable to the absence of government support and a harsh operating environment.
According to stakeholders, it is difficult to consider a country as a maritime nation when none of its shipping companies plays in the global arena or in container shipping that caters for more than 60 per cent of the seaborne trade .
Nigerian shipping companies are so unimpressve that they cannot even compete in their own coastal waters. Currently about 90 per cent of Nigerian shipping companies have been liquidated and those that are still in business are struggling to remain afloat with the lack capacity to compete.
To surmount all the challenges facing the industry and harness the abundant opportunities stakeholders have urged President Buhari to take urgent steps to address the various issues impeding smooth operations at the nation’s ports to save the sector from imminent collapse.
Stakeholders who spoke with Daily Sun, said the maritime sector needs total reforms, which Buhari should see as his top priority in the next six months. Buhari, they also argued should reverse the Automotive Policy back to what it was at 10 percet surcharge import duty from 35 per cent and additional 35 per cent surcharge.
They also said all the bad access roads to the ports should be fixed, stressing that all the dilapidated infrastructure must be replaced. The stakeholders said it is high time the new administration started developing blueprint on how to lay the foundation for rail system around the ports.
For instance, a maritime experts Mr. Martins Dickson, said it is difficult to say exactly the direction the President is going because nobody understands his body language since he didn’t give any speech after his swearing in.
He advised that the President must fix all problems facing the maritime sector failing which the decline in the sector over the last 15 to 20 years would aggravate
on phone, a Customs broker and chieftain of Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Joe Sanni, said a lot of maritime issues impact on Customs brokage because “our delivery depends on the efficiency of the ports and the efficiency of the ports depend on the access roads and other agencies functioning maximally.”
On what is expected of the President Buhari to do in maritime sector during his second term, he said Buhari should simply put and fix the access roads within record time.
He added: “Secondly, I want a situation where empty containers are warehoused in holding bays, so they will not be going to queue on the road before accessing the ports and whatever. The President should create a truck park village outside Lagos where they can come all over the country and park.
“This should be a place where drivers can freshen up and get some medical attention, while other activities can be going on. So when it is time for them to come and load consignments, within the time they are suppose to enter and the time they are being called, maybe an hour or two hours such that they can just come and just zoom in inside the ports without littering the ports at all. That is like an efficient call up system.”
According to him, when that is working well, then through the office of the Executive Secretary of the Shippers Council, the President should give an order that all the shipping companies, all the terminal operators and any stakeholders within the maritime industry must automate all their processes.
Said he: “And thereafter, ensure that the Nigeria Customs Service maybe through the Federal Government or Buhari himself should say look or ask them, how many scanners do you need in all the ports, border stations and the airports? And then, you place an order within a year; you are getting the scanners installed. And then, things will get to move.
“The challenge we have at the ports right now is that examination takes a long time. More importantly, the President should direct Nigeria Customs Service that to put in place a data manning system, data generation system, data collecting system such that periodically, we can say goods like this coming from so so place and they are not likely to be import compliance or so so importer is not trade compliance.”
He hinted that even Customs brokers too, should be profiled in such a way that anybody caught doing wrong thing, should be cautioned and sanctioned or his licence should be withdrawn.