As the President grapples with the task of constituting his Ministers, the Shippers’ Association of Lagos State (SALS) has reiterated its call for the creation of the Maritime Ministry to ensure close monitoring of the sector which he said was poised to take over from the oil sector as a leading revenue earner for the country.
The President of SALS, Rev Jonathan Nicol who made this call in Lagos while speaking in a chat with Primetime Reporters observed that lack of supervision has created a lot of loopholes for people to do whatever they liked adding that the association was looking up to the Federal Government which called for a change to bring the change that was required to bear in all sectors.
Nicol however advised the government to look for a seasoned individual to head the new Ministry adding that the maritime industry had quite a lot of qualified individuals in the industry even as he warned the government against recycling the same people.
He further noted that with continuous the recycling of the same individuals, the country would not be able to have the quality leadership in the sector.
“So, we look at the Ministry of Transport not just the maritime sector as a very vast area, rail transport, rod transport, maritime and it is huge. It is too huge for one individual to cover actually. We will suggest that the government will set up maritime ministry, I mean, look at this country, look at the number of cargo that we have and yet we don’t have a ministry of maritime”.
“So there should be job classification. While the Federal Ministry of transport should be concerned with the aspect of the rail transport which is huge, the road transport which is also huge, then the Maritime will deal with vessels, cargo and of course, you know it is also huge”.
“they should split the Ministry of Transport into two because lack of supervision has caused a lot of loopholes for people to do whatever they like and we are looking at the present federal government who calls for a change to bring all that change that is required in all the sectors and the business of bringing about change is huge because there is problem in all the sectors”, he said.
On whether the appointment of the Minister of State for the Transport Ministry to oversee the affairs of the maritime sector was desired, Rev. Nicol stated that that would not help as the Minister of State would still be directly under the Minister of Transport contending that such a junior Minister cannot take decisions on his own.
According to him,” The maritime ministry is a ministry where you take prompt decisions because it is a money spinning mechanism. Any little error or omission can distort the movement of goods in the sector”.
“So, whoever that is going to monitor the maritime ministry will know when a vessel should berth, the turnaround of vessels, he should know when cargo should be cleared, the turnaround of cargo and he should also know the activities of all the stakeholders as laid down by international principles”.
