A maritime practitioner, Sir Tony Anakebe has said that the Federal Government of Nigeria has not tapped the gains of the maritime sector in Nigeria as it ought to.
Anakebe who was speaking on the sideline of the award presentation to him in Lagos by the Management of Primetime Reporters yesterday observed that for Nigeria to gain from the benefits inherent in the maritime sector, a lot of the maritime sub-sectors needed to be explored and encouraged.
According to him,” In the Nigerian ports which I believed is supposed to be the busiest ports in Africa, you can see there are a lot of hiccups, things are not moving normal. In the 70s and 80s, you know you can drive into the ports and come out within seconds. You can load 200 containers in a day within an hour but now, you cannot load more than 20 and 40 containers in an hour and a lot of money is being lost in this seaport everyday through demurrages, through capital flight and everything. Nothing is organized; everything is disorganized as I am talking to you.
“After the concession, we thought that things will normalize but things are getting worse every day. Siting these tank farms in the whole of Apapa makes nonsense of every effort the federal government has made or the kind of money the federal government is supposed to generate from the ports”.
While pointing out that the federal government was losing a lot of revenue at the ports, he however reminded that government that the maritime sector was the second highest revenue earner for the government which it was losing warning that if the government did not improve and plan well for the industry, it would continue to lose money.
On his assessment of the level of attention the incumbent government had paid to the maritime sector since assumption of office, he said,” As at now, there is no attention in the ports. The present administration has not paid any attention to the port. The only good news is that the customs has lifted the ban on rice, that is the only thing.
“The whole system I the maritime is not what we expect. First of all, let there be a free movement in and out of the ports, let the operators come in and walk out so that they have to start planning how they do their work at the ports.
“There is nothing moving inside the ports except that the Nigerian government is making money for some overzealous terminal operators and shipping companies through demurrages and wasting of unnecessary time. We need their attention at this point in time”.
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