By Dickson Okafor

Ernest Elochukwu, Chairman/CEO, Nestello Gateways Group is also a former National President, Association of Nigeria Customs license Agent (ANLCA).

In this interview, he gave some insight into how expansion of the nation’s ports could enhance the maritime sector and also improve Nigeria’s economy.

The former aspirant for the House of Representatives said politicisation of the economy by government is hindering transition of economy from import to export driven.   

He speaks about other issues.

  Excerpts

Maritime      

Without equivocation, it has been terrible in the sense that it is with the resilient spirit of Nigerian importers and traders that has actually kept this sector active.

But then, if you talk about policies, the policies of the government and the effect of COVID-19 pandemic has actually to some extent ruined the prospect of growth in this sector.

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First, the policy before now, either the issue of import regulation in form of prohibition or restriction has been the purview of the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry of Finance alongside complimentary of national development put up policies which we saw as somehow strange. A situation whereby the Central Bank of Nigeria just got up one morning and said it would no longer issue foreign exchange for importation of 49 items was rather strange . When the Central Bank says that the foreign exchange that is available is not enough, and it is applying it in special needs can be understandable. But notwithstanding, that will translate as it is now into indirect way of banning those items because those that have the resources or foreign exchange outside the country or those who need to send money abroad to import those items ought be able to do that. But what is tenable is that it is a kind of indirect banning of these items because Central bank refuses to grant Form M for those items. However, at the long run those items will come into the country like they were ban and that has brought a whole lots of destruction to whatever that is going on. That’s why with such thing, this sector is not progressing at all. There are a whole lot of things that is going wrong.

Generally, those of us who stakeholders in the industry have always say that the country should be pursuing clear cut policies and not policies that look only good on paper. I mean policies that encourage local production and of course, everybody Nigerian knows that we cannot really claim to be a country if we cannot have our own means of producing our needs. At least a reasonable number of our needs if not all, but this is not something you do by wish. You do it by planning, deliberately pursuing infrastructural development to enable people manufacture locally. But a situation whereby the basic things needed for manufacturing is not on ground, it become a mere wishful thinking. That is exactly where we are now. There is a whole lot of policy of expectation and not policy of reality. Without mixing words, this is affecting us because it is not allowing us get value for money. In the principle of comparative advantage, it is said that countries or regions produce those items that have comparative advantage. In other words, they produce it cheaply than other countries that do not have such privileges such as nearness of raw materials. It makes international trade more competitive. A situation whereby we want to produce what we need in Nigeria, but we don’t have the capacity to do that or we have not started putting things in place to be able to do that, but we just went ahead and ban some essential items either through backdoor by the Central Bank is not the best. The implication is that when those items find their way into the country, they are expensive because they are not coming as they ought to come into the country.

Challenges

It is still a kind of wonder and we are taught that some people who have the analytical facts actually ask this question. If within a particular year say, 1million TEU’s (what we use to describe containers) come into a country with various items and 1trillion or 10trillion was collected as revenue and in another year 5000 or less than 5000 TEU’s come in and 15trillion was collected as revenue, there are many questions begging for an answer. First, it could be that the previous year  those who collected the revenue were not thorough or in the other hand, it could equal be that people were over taxed in current period because less quantity came in and more revenue was collected. And your quest is as good as mine. This is so because the government of the day, when we talk of government some people will think about the executive, no. I mean every organ or arms of government of today in Nigeria are always talking of money to spend. The National Assembly has humongous budget as well as the judiciary; the states, the local governments and then the federal government all have humongous budgets. So, a mandate is given to these organs of government including the customs to maximize revenue. But nobody is thinking about whether the right thing is being done in the process of generating this revenue or not. It’s a pity that there are no checks and balances. Even the bodies that are supposed to do the checks and balances to ensure that the right thing is done cannot do it because they are toothless bulldog. So, as it stands, it is a wonder. But it is not a wonder because this is Nigeria where anything does. However, it is a wonder because despite all problems we face in the sector huge revenue is realized while other countries are experiencing reduce revenue on account of a lot of issues, but the Nigerian ports system is still declaring maximum revenue in spite all the challenges makes most of us think something is wrong.

Usman’s suspension

I don’t dabble into political matters. Hadiza Bala Usman’s appointment as the Managing Director the NPA is political as far as I’m concerned. Those who appoint have the right to fire. In other words, in Nigeria the usual accusation is either financial corruption, abuse of office or high handedness. Why I don’t want to always go that way is because I have my reservation. First and foremost, those who were appointed, are they qualified? What are the merits of their appointment? Were they appointed through a process or they just bring options and without evaluating them hence from their own founding, they  decided that the person they appointed possesses the mix that would be very suitable for the position. But a situation whereby you just call somebody from somewhere and announced over the media that he/she has been appointed into a position will always result to what is playing out between the NPA and the Ministry of Transportation. So, why would it be my headache?

Onne port

The Onitsha port is not exactly what a port should be,  rather, it is a river port. When they say river port, it implies that you could discharge cargo either on a barge or on a boat inside containers in a seaport and then they are now transported to the port which is an inland kind of port through the river. But I can also tell you that it is not what it looks like on surface. Yes, it is water, but different water. It is not a sea route hence, the difficulty of moving the barge in the river water to Onitsha has to be properly evaluated. Such as time frame, cost implication as all these must be equally evaluated. Because when we are talking about Onitsha port, is like an inland port and you can’t call it dry port because it is through River Niger. Most of its operation is still by road. So, it is something that must be properly evaluated in terms of business value as well as cost when compare to the benefits before we can now start celebrating that Onitsha port has come to stay. Right now as I was told, there was trial movement of containers, but this time around empties containers from Onitsha to Onne which ran into a lot of issues. However, I wouldn’t know if they have learned a lesson from it or not. Therefore, is not that it can’t be done, but considering our peculiar situation which include security on the water ways, must get our facts right. Presently, the established shipping lines are having sleepless nights in what their vessels go through in the Gulf of Guinean. And you know that the water is a different terrain all together.