Q: With the numerous challenges facing the maritime industry, if you were to set agenda for the new minister, what would you advise him to do?
A: First is that, government is ongoing. I guess the ministers that were there before they were removed or had their portfolio changed had some agenda before he was appointed; so what I will advise the new minister to look at is the agenda of his predecessors and see where he could start from. But to me, the entire maritime industry has a problem and it has to do with governance. The previous government policies have not been good. They have not fared well in our sector. We have said severally that our government should put up policies that will ensure a level playing ground to plan so that we can boast of a solid maritime sector. Day in day out, we have been having changes in our policies. Changes in leadership and policies have never brought in someone who understands the maritime industry and knows what is expected in the industry. So whenever we have a new person, we do nothing but to approach issues on a fire brigade basis. I will appeal to the new minister to try and look inward and see who and who he will need to work with. With the global scope of the industry, we have very strong maritime operators that could give him good advice, not those who do not know what is happening in the industry but are close to the people in government, and at the end of the day we’d start looking for stakeholders to come together in search of solution. Solutions, however, can never come from such gatherings. So, I advise the minister to look inward and see who he could work with so that we will move the industry forward.
Engr. Emma Nweke, the Executive Chairman of International Trading and Contracting (ITC) Group of Companies is a major stakeholder in the maritime sector. In this interview he spoke on the woes of the industry, advising the Federal Government and the new Minister of Transport, Alhaji Ibrahim Isa Bio, on the way forward
Presently, the management of the ports has been taken away from the Nigeria Ports Authority. The ports have been completely given to private hands to run. I however want to bring to the notice of the minister that in the time of NPA, we never had a situation that was as bad as this. The problems we had, the NPA was able to handle them. When the situation appeared bad, private terminals were introduced. And NPA worked with private terminals. With support and understanding of those who run the private terminals, that issue of port congestion was eliminated, regardless of the bottleneck in the system. Some of the problems are man made. If you go to the port you’ll see about 18 to 21 agencies doing one single duty – Customs job. The police are positioned to secure just property and life at the port. But there the policeman becomes a Customs officer.
The NDLEA are supposed to be at the port to inspect containers which the Customs officers identify as coming from a drug-prone country. But today NDLEA looks at all containers at the port. If they cannot, they will immediately write that it is a suspected container. It is not done anywhere in the world. The worst part of it today is that a body like Quarantine would tell you that you cannot receive your containers because they saw a piece of wood inside and that will take you two days trying to resolve things. These are things that the federal government must look into.
Everyday, every year, we are talking about the same thing. Make it clear as was done in the era of Ango. Everything was put down on paper – the number of security agencies expected to be at the ports and what they are expected to do there. Outside that, they have no right to question anything that does not concern them. If these things are not taken into consideration, even when the task force is put together–because I know that the federal government will soon come up with a task force, disregarding whether the Customs Service has set up its own task force–things will not work. It is not a question of task force; it is a question of putting the foundation right.
Another one is that the process of giving out our ports to concessionaires to run was without interface between the terminal owners, that is, the local entrepreneurs that had been talked into running the terminals by the federal government of Nigeria. Rather, the former minister of Transport, Abiye Sekibo said that they should go and look for business to do, that they had no business here. Why?
A: We said ab initio that there is no way we can achieve 48 hours clearance of cargo in the ports because the large number of agencies at the ports has been an impediment to achieving quick clearance of goods. Paper transaction we do in Nigeria is another one. For you to bring in goods, you have to complete between 50 to 100 different papers that will be generated immediately you put in your SGD. Now the Nigeria Customs Service wants to implement ASYCUDA, which will make it easy for us to have paperless transaction. But there is need to educate the people you are bringing a new product to, in order to understand that product. For God’s sake, if things are not handled properly, even 78 hours clearance cannot be possible!
Q: 48-hour clearance of cargo has been a major issue in the sector, with Customs blaming agents and importers for not coming forward to clear their goods. What is your reaction?
Q: Under the circumstance we find ourselves do you think vessels will find Nigerian ports attractive?
A: No way. Already we have issues, no vessel wants to go to Port Harcourt because of the restiveness in the area. No vessel wants to go to Calabar, the dredging is not deep enough. The government has refused to dredge the Calabar axis. Everybody is scared, nobody wants to go to RoRo in Warri. The only port today that is viable is the Lagos Port.
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