By Barnabas Esiet
The minister of transportation, RT. Honorable Rotimi Amaechi, says the federal government is committed to making Nigeria the maritime hub of African coastal region and the rest of the world.
Amechi said this at a two-day conference with the theme; ‘’improved ports efficiency in Nigeria as a catalyst for economic growth’’, organised in Lagos by the maritime correspondent’s organization, MARCON. The minister, who amazed participants when he arrived the venue for the event about two hours earlier, underscored his administration’s readiness to implement policies that would further enhance public private partnership towards realising a cost effective and efficient port services in the country comparable to those in the advanced nations.
‘’the present administration realizing the fact that the maritime subsector globally is largely private sector driven with government providing the appropriate policy framework to improve investments and saveguard the Nation’s waterways; is therefore, determined to implement policies that would contribute significantly to the growth of the Nation’s economy. We will partner with the National assembly to ensure that the four sectoral bills namely: the Nigerian ports and Harbors Authority bill (2015), the national inland waterways Authority bill(2015, the Nigeria railways bill (2015) and the National Transport Commission bill (2015) are passed into law and implemented accordingly’’. He said.
On the controversy over which agency between the Nigeria Customs Service and the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) should be responsible for the registration of freight forwarders in the sector, Amaechi directed all freight forwarding practitioners to register with the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria, CRFFN , within two weeks or risk forfeiting their licenses.
He noted that the registration of customs brokers is not under the jurisdiction of the Nigeria customs adding that such move was tantamount to breaking of the law. The minister further ordered the various freight forwarding associations to immediately resolve their differences with the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) or risk being proscribed.
According to the former Governor of Rivers State, “Let me talk to the customs practitioners, there is a law that you people are breaking and that law has to do with an agency in my ministry. I have met with the Comptroller General of Customs and we are starting a fresh registration of all customs agents and the requirement will be to go and register there (CRFFN) before you can became a customs agent Myself and the CGC have agreed to meet and all I will tell him is to go and announce to customs agents to go and start fresh registration because they must comply to the law”.
Earlier in his address, the President of MARCON, Mr. Ismail Aniemu, expressed concerns over the leadership positions in some key agencies under the minister of transportation, such as national agency for maritime administration, NAMA, maritime academy of Nigeria, MAN and Nigerian maritime administration and safety agency, NIMASA, filled in acting capacities, noting that the situation has affected efficiency and speedy decision making in the affected organisations.
“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. 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 Honorable Minister of Transport is equally concerned and willing to alert President Muhammed Buhari and the Federal Executive Council on the need to urgently close the gap. The media has regularly reported instances of conflicts between terminal operators and port users such as customs brokers and truckers duplicating roles of the Nigerian ports authority and NIMASA, Shippers and shipping lines with the Nigerian shippers council caught in the middle as more of peacemaker than executor of lawful arbitrator, dockworkers conflicts over wages and acceptable working conditions, etc’’, He added.
Highlight of the occasion was the conferment of MARCON gold award on six distinguished persons and institutions in the sector.
