The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has harped on the need for a periodic review of the concession agreement so as to bring it in consonance with the realities of the ever changing world.
The Executive Secretary of the NSC, Mr. Hassan Bello made this observation at a one day conference on “Review of the Port Concession Agreement with focus on Rights and Obligations of the Lessor and Lessee, Role of the Economic Regulator, Effect of Persistent Gridlock on Port Access Roads on the Concession Exercis” organized by the NSC and the International Maritime Exhibitions and Conference Limited in Lagos last week.
Bello described the concession agreement as a vital document to guide all the conduct of all the parties in the agreement especially the terminal operators and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) with the Bureau for Public Enterprise as a witnessing party.
According to him,” These bundle of rights and obligations put on the individuals the opportunity to see who has what rights and who has what obligations, what remedies, what other contractual obligations that bind the parties and the success or failure of the concession agreement therefore rests squarely on that important document.
Of course, the document is a guide nut it is a document that ought to be reviewed periodically and certain provisions are due for review. In the review however, all the parties must be represented. It is the parties who will look at the problems they are experiencing and suggest ways of tackling them and I think the Federal Ministry of transport has started this exercise and it should be complemented”.
On his part, the former Chairman of Indigenous Ship Owners Association of Nigeria (ISAN) now Nigeria indigenous Ship owners Association (NISA), Chief Isaac Jolapamo described the conference as coming a little behind time as according to him, Nigerian port was still one of the most expensive ports I the West African sub-region adding that those who had the data would know this.
Jolapamo who doubled as the Chairman of the conference opening ceremony recalled that when the need to have a port economic regulator arose, some of them were insisting that NSC be made the port economic regulator while some others preferred that another commission be set up saying that the rest was history.
“But I am glad that the government listened to some of those wise counsels by transmuting the Nigerian Shippers’ Council to be the economic regulator. I believed that in the past fifteen months, we must also commend their efforts, not only their efforts but the efforts of those who preceded them in the likes of Captain Biu and the moderator of today, aare Sarumi”, he said.
He however warned that Nigerians must not lose sight of the fact that in shipping, there was what was known as the international conspiracy adding that the will to resist some of those conspiracies must come from Nigerians and not from the outside world.
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