A maritime stakeholder, Sir Tony Anakebe has given a thumb down to the administration of the President Muhammadu Buhari one year after assuming office as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria saying he is yet to meet the expectations of the practitioners in the maritime sector of the economy.
Speaking in a chat with newsmen in Lagos, Anakebe recalled that on assumption, the expectations of the stakeholders were very high as they hoped that was going to bring change in every aspects of the economy but were disappointed to note instead, a lot businesses had gone underground as a result of the planning and execution of his policies which he said had not helped matters.
He recalled the delay in appointing his Ministers, the delay in presenting the 2016 budget proposal to the National Assembly and the attendant delay in the passing and signing of the budget all added to their dissapointement.
According to him,” You can understand, a lot of industries have gone underground because there is no focus, no direction. A lot of companies especially in the maritime sector relocated from Nigeria to other neighbouring countries and it is not good for the economy.
“So, We were expecting that with his assumption in office, there will be a drastic change but it didn’t come the way we expected it and it actually affected the economy and pot operations which everyone of us know is now on the downside. The customs did not make up to 50% of their targeted revenue, that was not a day dream. So, we pray that he sit up and give the economy the direction it needs”.
On what contributed to the low level of business in the maritime sector in recent time, he disclosed that the cargo throughput had dropped drastically and that the number of ships calling at the Nigerian ports had reduced saying that most of the terminals were empty.
Anakebe who is also the Managing Director and Chief Executive of the Goldlink Investment Limited recalled that lack of economic policy and direction on the part of the Federal Government was responsible for the lull in business notice over a year ago.
“It is not only in the maritime sector, it affects almost all the sectors of the economy but we are talking about the maritime sector because we believe that through then maritime sector, government can feed its citizens. But with all these policies, hiccups here and there, you cannot talk about the FOREX, importers themselves cannot source for the FOREX even if you have the cash.
“You cannot talk about the shipping companies, terminal operator, you can see all the terminals are filled with empty containers, their ships are not coming to move them back to the ports of origin. In the past one year, the Government has not helped matters by the way they handled the economy”, he said.
He doubted the possibility of the Nigerian Customs Service meeting their 2016 revenue target adding that if the service gets up to 70% of its revenue target this year, Nigerians should praised them even as he said,” I don’t see them realizing their target at all.
On the way forward, the Goldlink boss stated,” The government has to produce an economic blueprint as that could encourage the investors come into the country to invest noting that where you don’t have an economic blueprint that would safeguard the investors’ investment, most of them would go back or leave the country.
He maintained that,” The Present government should sit up and let us know where they are directing us to. We have Treasury Single Account (TSA) where all the money goes into, the ones due for NPA, customs and others they cannot access it easily and what do you expect them to do? Is that not going to encourage corruption because they have to sort themselves out in any way. As at now, we discover that the best thing the government should give us is an economic blueprint, let us have a free market where people can source for FOREX and start importing their goods”.
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