On behalf of the Maritime Correspondents Organisation of Nigeria, it gives me great pleasure to welcome all of you to this conference, being the hallmark of MARCON Annual Seminar/Retreat.
Traditionally, the conference holds between October and November of every year since inception in 2008; but which was unavoidably shifted to today owing to numerous palpable national concerns especially about our economy that has come under great trial over the past few months. Of course, we are not alone in this inevitable downturn, however, government and various segments of society have been concerned that we could do better, with the right attitude.
Hon. Minister of Transportation, our guests and participants we consider the topic of today’s conference, Improved Ports Efficiency in Nigeria as Catalyst for Economic Growth very germane, in the light of recent developments across the globe, especially in our maritime industry. Perhaps, a cursory overview of developments in this very vital sector will help us achieve a clearer understanding of our focus today.
These developments are pivotal and have brought the industry to where it is today, beginning with the port reforms programmes in 2006, which produced a number of reforms decisions at the highest level of governance, such as the privatization and commercialization initiatives.
Sequel to the above policy decisions and implementations, as watchdog and critical observers, I dare say quite a lot has since happened to reshape the history of the Nigerian Ports. Undoubtedly, much has been achieved, any less much, it would appear, calls for urgent reappraisal.
We are convinced the Minister of Transportation will leave here today further enriched about the maritime industry, which has come under his purview at this critical time of our national economic life.
Many issues have regularly cropped up as a recurring decimal; one is often at a loss whether our port industry is actually growing or shrinking. Of economically viable and intellectually robust policies we have in abundance, yet, there have been periodic sectoral conflicts between stakeholders, such that it would appear the required nexus has been founded on quicksand.
MARCON is concerned that leadership positions in some of the agencies under the ministry of transportation are filled in acting capacity, and this is affecting quick decision making in terms of efficiency and operation. NAMA, MAN, NIMASA are some of the agencies with leadership question mark.
With the present regime’s pace of fight against corruption that has affected a number of critical job category in the maritime and aviation industry, we believe the Hon. Minister of Transportation is equally concerned, and willing to alert President Muhammadu Buhari and the Federal Executive Council on the need to urgently close the gap.
For so long, MARCON and the Nigeria media became aware of an unnecessary and scandalous cold war between management of MAN Oron and NIMASA, over issues of timely release and acceptable figure of statutory funding. Complaints that MAN may have failed to judiciously apply its funds and allegations that NIMASA has assumed a headmaster status over MAN in the disbursement of this funds, including the actual figure is perhaps a manifest evidence of the rot in our system, which this government should muster the political will to look into and resolve, once and for all.
Also, the media has regularly reported instances of conflicts between terminal operators and port users such as customs brokers and truckers; duplicating roles of NPA and NIMASA, Shippers and Shipping Lines with the Nigerian Shippers’ Council caught in the middle as more of a peacemaker than executor of lawful arbitrator, dockworkers conflicts over wages and acceptable working condition etc.
Ship Registration, Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund [CVFF], Maritime Development Fund also constitute pressure points in the pursuit of increased capacity and growth.Industry stakeholders' expectations from these laudable government initiatives are still high as they are widely believed to have performed below expectations in terms of implementation and benefits to the country.
We are believing that President Muhammadu Buhari administration will evolve a better developmental template for short, medium and long term economic advancement through continuous improvements on sensitive economic assets like the ports for optimum productivity.
When the FG sets revenue generation target, are there forces to abort these, and if not, why are there political and operational hurdles often strewn on the way with lesser successes?
With focus more on the non-oil sector, especially at this crucial period of international market oil glut, the challenge now is on the maritime industry and the agro sectors. We recall that the FG has set a N500billion target for the maritime agencies. Is this realizable, is it not? What are the yardstick for transparent realization of this upscale target?
We are hopeful that with the number of industry stakeholders assembled here today, including agencies of government, importers and terminal operators and the logistics value chain, that answers will be provided for most of the posers already raised.
We are particularly delighted that this government has a transportation minister that has demonstrated willingness to work with all Nigerians, a minister amenable to change and pursuit of growth initiatives for the greater national interest.
Thank you for your attention.
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