The House of Representatives Committee on Maritime Safety, Education and Administration has said that the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has not lived up to its expectations in its enforcement functions at the port.
The Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Mohammed Umaru Bago stated this while reacting to comments from the representatives of the Maritime Workers’ Union of Nigeria (MWUN) when he led members of his committee on a familiarization visit to the National Secretariat of the National Association of Stevedoring Companies (NASC) in Lagos on Monday.
While recalling that NIMASA had enormous powers as the highest regulatory agency in the maritime sector in Nigeria, Bago however said that the agency lacked understanding and commitment to effectively carry out this function.
According to him,”As the Comrade spoke and said that the enforcement implementation of NIMASA powers has been very slow, I quite agree with you and Mrs. Gunwa will not argue about that. NIMASA has enormous powers, the highest regulatory body in this country in terms of maritime activities but because of probably lack of understanding or goodwill or lack of commitment from certain quarters, the Department of Labour in NIMASA has not been given priority. Shipping development, yes, they have gotten enough in terms of support from NIMASA but the maritime labour has not been given enough. But I want to reassure you that the committee will ensure that these things change”.
He reasoned that the concession agreement between the Nigerian government and the concessionaires had a big default in it, the reason why the maritime labour had been undermined.
“Just yesterday (Sunday), in a very uncommon meeting, I took up the DG of NIMASA and I am still going to take him up this afternoon on the same issue of the Tally Clerks and he also agreed with me that it is very necessary for two reasons; one, for the security and accountability and secondly, employment. If you have Tally Clerks in every port and in every jetty, do you know how many you are going to employ in Nigeria? Gainful employment and they will be working, there will be no redundancy.
“So, we will look into that and come up with a very beautiful way of addressing this issue. Right now, the Bureau for Public Enterprise, Nigerian Ports Authority and the concessionaires are looking into the concession agreement with a view to improve it. So, it is an avenue for us to harness and make sure that stevedoring and maritime labour are really captured in our agreement henceforth”, he said.
On why the came on the visit, the Committee Chairman disclosed,”We are not here to do a public hearing, we just came here first, to familiarize, secondly, for you to understand that the House of Representatives especially the House Committee on Maritime Safety, Education and Administration which by the grace of God, I am the Chairman today is a development partner for you to harness. You sit down and discuss, then you can put pen on paper and send to us, some of these things can come out as laws, proposed amendment to the constitution, proposed amendment to bills and by the grace of God, we will work on them and we will get there”.
While reminding the Stevedoring association and the maritime labour union that their struggle must be a collective one, he called on them to work in synergy advising them to eschew all forms of power play between them as according to him,”everybody has his own area of jurisdiction, if you work within the confines of your law, then we will move forward”.
On his part, the Director-General of NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside observed that the agency had maintained a peaceful and fruitful relationship with the maritime labour union in the past few years adding that the issues raised by the stevedoring association were being looked into.
Represented by the Director, Maritime labour in the agency, Mrs. Juliana Gunwa, Peterside informed that the Ministry of Transportation had approved a Ministerial regulations for stevedoring companies which he said was supposed to take care of all the issues raised by the association.
The DG further revealed that the Executive Management of NIMASA had given approval for the Ministerial regulations to be formally presented to the stakeholders on the 15th of December 2016.
“This I believe will solve a good number of these issues raised by the association especially the issue of members of the association not being allowed to participate effectively at the jetties and offshore platforms.
“On the issue of Tally Clerks, we believe that the association and the union had been dealing with the Ministry of Transportation on the issue but the truth is before the concession, the Nigerian Ports Authority had an agreement that the contract will last for about ten years which ended last December. I believe they said they couldn’t continue because the ports had been concessioned and they couldn’t continue with the agreement after the expiration of the contract. So, I believe the union and the association are still working with the Ministry on the way forward in this regard”, Peterside said.
Earlier in his welcome speech, the President, National Association of Stevedoring Companies (NASC), Mr. Bolaji Sunmola complained about the way and manner the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) without recourse to NIMASA Act refused to pay Tally Clerks and Onboard Security men and eventually locked them out of the ports whereas the NIMASA Act provided the procedures and conditions under which a registered dockworker could be removed, suspended or dismissed.
He recalled that they took the protest to the Honorable Minister of Transportation with no favorable response requesting that the breach of the law and the fundamental rights of Tally Clerks and Onboard Security men be revisited under the parliamentary overview by the National Assembly.
“For now, we are hearing that the work of the Tally Clerks i.e physical tally is about to be contracted to cargo surveyors, this matter needs urgent investigation by the House Committee.
“We wish to bring to your notice the complain about the refusal of private jetties and offshore operators to accept Stevedore and Stevedoring companies appointed by the Nigerian Ports Authority, bearing in mind that the duties of loading and offloading of cargo in the areas belong by law to registered stevedore/stevedoring companies. It is obvious that government is losing a great deal of revenue because the stevedores and labour and dockworkers are the eyes of the government is this economic zones. This act therefore was security implications.
“As registered and licensed stevedores under the NIMASA Act, we demand a monopoly of the job and protection from any forms of encroachment by other unauthorized port users seeking for contract within the terminals as is the position of the law at present”, he pleaded.
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