Mr. David Pius is the former Public Relations Officer of a Maritime activists group, Save Nigeria Freight Forwarders, Importers and Exporters Coalition (SNIFFIEC) as well the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Uburu Maritime Limited. In this interview with our correspondent, NWADINAMUO AUGUSTINE, he assessed the Mraritime sector in the last six months, capacity building in the maritime sector, the Apapa gridlock an many more. Excerpts;
How would you assess the maritime sector in the last six months?
My assessment of the industry is that of 30 percent performance. This is so because we are not there yet, we are still trying to get to our maritime destination.
What informed your rating the performance of the sector in the last six months at 30 percent?
The area that informed my rating the maritime sector performance in the last six months at 30 percent is that of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria at Oron, Akwa-Ibom State. That is where most our seafarers are being trained.
It will amaze you that the Certificate issued to the seafarers trained in Nigeria in that Academy are not recognized internationally. It breaks my heart that when I think about the Certificate issued by the Maritime Academy in Nigeria are not recognized but that of Ghana is recognized internationally even by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
That was why I said that the Nigerian maritime sector in the last six months can be rated at 30 percent performance because we are not there yet but we hope to be there some day, we will get there.\
I am aware that MAN Oron is the only IMO Certified Maritime training Institution in Nigeria. On what ground do you contest that the Certificates issued by the institution is not recognized internationally?
It is not recognized and MAN is also like you quoted, the only institution certified by IMO but then why is it not recognized internationally in terms of absorbing our seafarers in other climes, providing employment internationally for our locally trained seafarers?
So, that could also remind you that, that could be the reason why the Federal government did the ground breaking ceremony of the first Nigerian Maritime University recently somewhere in Delta State. If really that the Academy provides you what you really needed, the issue of building a Nigerian Maritime university would not have arose. It could only arise on the basis that we want to expand in terms of our professionalism.
I am sure the issue of the Academy was not the only issue that made you arrive at the decision to score the industry as low as 30 percent in the first half of 2014. What are the other factors?
When you look at the maritime sector of the economy, you will discover that the sector lacked Federal presence. Much of the Federal presence is not felt in the maritime sector. The only thing that interests the federal government is whether the Nigeria Customs Service is generating revenue, forgetting that in the maritime sector, there is what is called the untapped resources.
There are so many areas you can tap from like creating an enabling environment. Government all over the world creates enabling environment and when you create the enabling environment, you are not only creating it for the local investors, you are also creating it for the foreign investors.
For example, look at the Cabotage law, it does not really have what we call the local content. If it really have that local content, what is the need of the maritime stakeholders calling for its amendment so that it will have real local content?
In the Maritime sector, when you create an enabling environment like I said earlier, you are not creating it for local companies to thrive, you are creating it for foreign investors, you are also making it a maritime destination for the global investors. If you are attracting investors from all over the world to come in, there is the need for Nigeria and Nigerians to own ships.
Everyday, we train seafarers and yet they have no job to do after their training, nobody employs them, internationally, they are not employed.
Come to think of it, how many foreign vessels do Nigerians make up their crew? And we are here saying that the government is doing well. Well the government may mean well but they have not really done what they are supposed to do to tap the untapped resources that are abound in the sector.
Then our trainees need to work. If they are not engaged in foreign vessels in order for them to have sea time experience along with their foreign counterparts all over the world, we can also open up that sector for local ship owners to own ships and absorb our own trainees from the Maritime Academy. These are critical areas that the federal government should be looking at because when you train someone and the person have no job at the end of the day, you are indirectly creating an army of youth unemployment and when the result will come, I believe it will definitely be negative.
Are you aware that the Nigerian Maritime Administration and safety Agency (NIMASA) as well as one other indigenous company has been doing a lot in placing these trained seafarers on board vessels for their sea time experience at the end of their training both locally and internationally?
You called it sea time experience? That is what I am saying, all still boils down to training. Have they really provided jobs for these people? Don’t you think that the government need to encourage our local ship owners by giving them some money so that from there, they can start off. Government should create a fund and allow these indigenous ship owners to source these funds and acquire their own vessels and in turn absorb these boys that are being trained at the institutes internally and externally.
What are the positive things that you would say the industry had achieved in the last six months or are there none?
The only good thing is that they have been able to train a lot of seafarers, they have also exposed them internationally, they have also acquired some experiences on that aspect and it is a welcomed development. But when you train, you also provide jobs for all of these people. That is why I keep saying that we have not really done well in this aspect.
And again, the government is only interested in how much the industry can generate for it in a month. Has the government talked about total compliance with the ISPS code? Have they tried to enforce it across all the ports in the country?
Have they really look into that area and know that failure to do that, the implication that it portends to Nigerians in the ports? But all they are interested in is how much they can generate forgetting that there are some facilities you need to put in place and the much you generate now as government would be a peanut to what you would have generated if all these facilities are in place.
I am aware that about three weeks ago or so, the ports security and NIMASA celebrated 10 years of ISPS code compliance in Nigeria. Was that not a sign that government has taken the issue of ISPS code serious in the country?
It has been complied with but a lot still needed to be done, you can’t stop at where you are now because a lot is still expected of them. Ghana has not stopped where they were, they keep moving on, pressing forward to get to the pinnacle of every vision they had in all aspect of their economy like the Maritime sector. You can’t keep praising yourself and keep talking about your achievements without achieving it to the pinnacle, to the zenith of it. That was why I said we are not there yet.
Away from the shipping sector, let us talk about the freight forwarding industry which is your core area. What is your assessment of the freight forwarding industry in the last six months?
The only thing we have achieved is that we have been able to accept PAAR. We have accepted it even though the first three to four months of the regime, we saw hell. All we were told was that we should keep faith believing that one day, it will get better, that the transmission problem will not last for ever, that the issuance of PAAR will improve some day.
And of course, we faced it that period and we pressed through the media and today, the story is no longer the same and that is another achievement.
But what we were told in one of the stakeholders’ meeting was that the Webb Fontaine contract will no longer be extended because the Nigeria Customs Service will now provide their own technology backbone but what we see toady is that the Webb Fontaine contract has been extended and it is no longer customs technology.
We have accepted the PAAR and also welcomed the Nigeria Customs operation to take over the operations of the former service providers. So it is a welcomed development.
But I beg to say that we are not yet there also because in that aspect, there are also challenges we face. The challenges are that when you submit your document for the PAAR to be issued, you will be given a different HS Code from what you originally submitted. So, we are not there yet but so far so good, I have welcomed it and the areas where they have not done well, we will keep talking about them through the media so that they will improve on those areas.
Between investing in Capacity building and investing in infrastructure, which would you think should be paramount in the industry now?
The two of them are very important. Capacity building is a welcomed development. When you talk about the capacity building for the freight forwarders, you now talk about the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN). I think it is another professional body for the average freight forwarder.
Capacity building in that area, you and I know that the CRFFN have not been functional for sometime now and as such, when you talk about capacity building for freight forwarders, I would say that we have not experienced anything but on the part of the seafarers, the capacity building is there for them. NIMASA is also trying in that aspect.
When you talk about the roads,even the access roads to the ports, you and I know that they are in deplorable state. There is no exageration about it, it is something that everybody is seeing everyday.
The government need to pay attention to these two pillars of the maritime sector because the two of them are key issues. If you tackle capacity building and you don’t tackle the infrastructure, then how do you think the industry will move forward?
There was calls in some quarters for the harmonization of the CRFFN Act and the Customs and Excise management Act (CEMA) to make room for one licensing body in the freight forwarding industry as against what obtains today where the Customs licenses its agents while the CRFFN licenses both. What is your opinion on the matter?
I think sections 132, 133, 134 and 135 of the CEMA recognizes an entity called the company whereas it does not recognize the individual which is the area the CRFFN Act improved upon.
If they are calling for the harmonization, I think there is that need for the two Acts to be harmonized so that it will also help to further strengthen the industry.
So anything that will move the industry forward is the thing that should be adopted, if they are calling for the harmonization of the two legal instruments, I think it is a welcomed development.
There was a recent court Judgment that ruled that the CRFFN is a government regulatory agency as against the clamour in some quarters before now that it is a private council. What is your take on this?
Now, listen, it is a government agency. Who is saying that it is a private council? The government wanted to regulate the activities of freight forwarders because of the proliferation of associations and other sharp practices embarked upon by practitioners in the industry.
If you look around, you discover that there was no regulatory agency in terms of regulating the freight forwarding in Nigeria and government came up with this idea through suggestions from the knowledgeable stakeholders in the industry and they now used it to make its decision that there was a need for a regulatory body to regulate the industry.
And that was the beginning of the CRFFN. CRFFN is not a private agency, rather it is a government agency . Of course you and I know that a yearly budget is being appropriated for it by the government. If CRFFN were to be a private agency, would the federal government be budgeting for it?
But we equally know that for the past two years or so, the Federal government has not made any budgetary provision for the council hence its challenges in recent times?
This one is a clear indication to prove to you that CRFFN is a government agency. If they withdrew funding to the council, it may be for some obvious reasons, may be for reasons of corruption or that the money previously budgeted for was not being used for what it was meant for. This is a simple arithmetic.
What is your view of the recent traffic gridlock that is crippling business activities in Apapa?
Apapa gridlock emanated from the deplorable state of the roads in the area. Sometimes, I wonder how government makes its policies. Who formulates policies? Who implements policies? And I wonder if they are running the government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Any policy that you are formulating and the policy is not targeted at improving the lots of the people you are governing, that is to say that that policy is not worth adopting. It is just that in this part of the world, we are always cold and we always see it from the perspective of God knows all our problems and therefore we don’t react when we ought to react over some issues.
Now, you have a seaport where you generate billions of Naira, in each of the customs commands at the seaports, government generates over 30 billion Naira every month. That is to say that everyday, government generates over one billion Naira from each of the commands and when you generate this kind of money, and there is also bad roads on those areas, we call it the economic gate way of Nigeria and yet there is no access roads.
Even when the government is trying to do the roads that is even causing this traffic gridlock, you find out that most times, they don’t do a quality road considering that fact that the roads absorb so many pressures and as such, you need to do it with such quality that will give a guarantee of twenty or thirty years.
How do you expect that there won’t be traffic gridlock on those roads? Go there now, you find out you cannot pass any of the roads because of bad or deplorable state of the roads.
And not only that, the government should also look inwards to find the ways they can relocate all these tank farms. That brings us to what we call National Development Master plan. All over the world, any country that wants to develop, always have development plan at the back of their minds.
Now, when they were doing that roads, they didn’t consider that what you have in the year 1955 or 1970 is not going to be the population you are going to have in the year 1999, now the population has grown and the people are expanding their businesses. What you need to do, you don’t need the citizens to remind you of the relocation of those tank farms because already you have your plan. You need to relocate them to another place. There are also other places you can relocate them to, you can do that with federal might as the federal government.
Also, don’t forget, it is not only the effort of the federal government, the state also has a stake in it. I overheard people say, this is a federal road. Both the state and federal government are generating revenue from the same ports and the federal government said do the roads and present the bills, that they want to partner the state government. That was exactly the statement Mr. President made on his inaugural speech, that he want to partner the states in developing the infrastructure.
And of a truth, other states have been doing the roads and presenting their bills to the federal government. The Local government also have a stake in this. All hands must be on deck to develop our ports. But the only area I hold the federal government responsible is knowing what to do and not doing it.
Among the agents, terminal operators and the customs, who do you think contributes more to the problem in the maritime sector in Nigeria?
It is a collective efforts, everybody should rise up to the occasion to ensure that problems are tackled in the sector. Customs have a stake, the Freight Forwarders too have a stake, NIMASA, everybody have stake to ensure that the maritime sub-sector of the economy is built.
Now, I don’t want to apportion blames to any segment or to any of the government agencies or to any of the stakeholders. But what am saying is that all hands must be on deck. It is not a time to apportion blames or take sides. Together, we can build a port of our dream and become a voice in the global maritime community.
