The Chairman, Association of Igbo Maritime Practitioners in Nigeria (AIMPN), Mr. Uchechukwu Aniezechukwu has decried the huge profits declared annually by the shipping companies and terminal operators operating at the Nigerian Maritime sector saying that the development had never reflected on the industry as a whole.
Aniezechukwu who made this known in chat with newsmen in Lagos on Thursday argued that there was hardly any nation of the world where the profit margin of the multinational companies doing business in it would not reflect on the lives of the people.
He further argued that whereas the shipping companies and terminal operators were busy recording high profit and the people of Nigeria were suffering, there must be something wrong adding that that thing that was wrong was that the people were being exploited.
“We ought to highlight this, we have to bring it to their minds, we cannot continue like this. We are in shambles, we are not working. Brothers and Sister, we are not working. Don’t let anybody deceive you, some set of people are just making money.
“Have you ever seen the economy where the profit margin of the multinational does not reflect in the lives of the people? We know the simple economic theory, that once there is inflation, the people suffer. Once their dividends are declared, which economic theory guaranteed Maersk Line to be declaring billions of naira as profit and the industry is in shamble?Which economic theory, where did they get it?
“That Lansal, that Ports and Cargo, that Grimaldi are recording high profit and the people are suffering is a sign that something is wrong and there is nothing wrong than the people are being exploited”, he said.
On his assessment of the level of attention paid to the maritime industry by the current administration, he said that he had not seen anything that happened to the maritime sector since the inception of this administration let alone being satisfied adding that he should have a template for assessing satisfaction, his own template would be that nothing had been done in the maritime sector.
According to him,” Where do we start from? What do we talk about? I can talk to you about capacity building, it is zero, I can talk to you about infrastructure both on the part of the shipping companies and the terminal operators, it is zero. I can start talking about logistics which we are talking about day and night in the ports, nobody in the modern day and time builds a port without a trailer park.
“The modern ports all over the world, you can compare the Singapore ports or the Malaysian Ports, even the yesterday Dubai ports. The working modalities in the Dubai ports is that even before your cargo arrives, you are supposed to have done 20% clearing and by the time it arrives, all you need to do is the in cession which of course is electronic and you can do it in 1 hour.
“What it obviously means is that your cargo is not supposed to be in Dubai ports for more than 24 hours and off you go. What happened to our pact on Trade Liberalization? Are we not signatory to this convention that says that cargoes must go out of the ports in 24 hours?”, he queried.
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