…Says there’s no need for it
…Calls for right recruitment process
One year after the creation of the Marine and Blue Economy Ministry by the Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, the Chief Executive Officer, CEO of Widescope Group, Dr. Segun Musa has faulted the creation of the Marine and Blue Economy Ministry as a stand alone ministry, describing it as unnecessary.
Musa who spoke in a chat with our correspondent in Lagos recently maintained that there was no need splitting the transportation ministry into two different ministries when it should actually be one, strengthened and empowered to meet the needs of the stakeholders and the nation at large.
Noting that Blue Economy used to be a Department in the ministry of Transportation in the 70s and 80s, he insisted that it was more functional as a Department than when it had been made a full fledged Ministry saying that there was no need for it as according to him, it was going to bring a lot of conflicts.
He said, “There’s no need for it because there’s going to be a lot of conflicts. This is so because what we used to have within the port activities, you now have the rail under another Ministry, the haulage under another Ministry.
“Before now, any activity that involves itself within the maritime corridor is always under the same ministry and it helps for easy coordination and synergy because the impact of one affects the other. I don’t see the need of dividing that Ministry. We can only ensure that whoever is going to superintend over it must be knowledgeable and have the capacity to manage it. But by the time you begin to make it look like this one is under this ministry, that one is under that ministry, then there will be conflict.
“Only that Amaechi was not too vast in the sector, just like the man they gave the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy now, he is not too vast in the sector and if you allow whoever is not vast, either for political compensation or for whatsoever reason, you allow them to superintend over sensitive sectors, that sector will not grow. Even if the civil servants know that what he is doing is wrong, they won’t be able to say anything.
“I faulted Amaechi’s appointment as the Minister of Transportation. I was of the opinion that they should have looked for another Ministry to compensate Amaechi for whatever he has done for the last regime. Amaechi almost ruined the entire transport sector in Nigeria. At one point, I named him Minister of Railway, he focused more on the railway because more money was coming from the railway and even, if you look at the railway that he paid more attention to, there’s nothing spectacular he did there. Left for me, they should have summoned him and query him. He should account for so many things.
“This is a very sensitive sector, the transport sector. Since they established the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, what has it achieved aside from the Minister globetrotting everyday and holding talk shows? The Blue Economy has always been there, it’s the economy that we have in abundance but were not being utilized. We don’t need to create a ministry before we utilize it, we only need to make the institution strong and ensure you have the right peg in the right holes, you don’t need a ministry.”
Reminded that the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, for the first time in decades captured the contributions of the maritime sector in its reports, an achievement attributable to the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Gboyega Oyetola, he said, “Beyond the contribution of the maritime industry to the GDP, you would want to see a kind of revolution that will reflect the reality on ground.
“If they say it is contributing to the GDP, what is the comparison between freight tonnage that came in during the last regime and what is coming in now? It has reduced drastically. So, it’s either somebody is not capturing the impact at the NBS during the last regimes and they are just doing so now, or they are using propaganda figures for us just to make us believe that there is a change.
“Sometimes, I wonder about the kind of statistics they give to us because it often conflicts with reality. I stopped using it as a yardstick to measure the impact or contributions to the GDP because there’s so many conflicts in their figures. So, for me, I feel someone is somewhere trying to tabulate figures, a kind of make believe because in reality, the figures NBS is giving us does not tally.
“Where are the figures coming from? The freight has reduced, the number of ship calls to our ports has reduced, container throughput has reduced, so which other areas are the revenues coming from?”
He however advised that the managers of this nation should go back to the drawing board and engage the critical stakeholders so that together, they could interrogate where they got it wrong as a nation saying, “Part of where we got it wrong is recruiting the wrong people for the right jobs. Our recruitment process has been politicized. A lot of people that have nothing to do in the maritime industry are the major actors in that sector now.”
Speaking on the way forward, the Widescope Group boss said, “We must ensure that that ministry that superintends over the transportation sector is one. Don’t divide them into different ministries since it’s a single industry. This is so because, if there is an issue between the two Ministers, it will affect the entire industry. If they don’t agree with each other over a policy and they conflict, it affects the entire industry. That’s why you should ensure that the same ministry manages it.
“If actually we practice the intermodal transportation system in Nigeria, there’s no need to have a ministry for aviation, we will only have a Director of aviation who superintends over the aviation sector as if he is a Minister and reports to the ministry. Transport is transport, whoever that has brought the idea of unbundling the transportation sector has done a great disservice to this nation. One day, somebody will wake up and say let’s have ministry of haulage, just to create jobs for the boys.
“So, for us to get it right, we must revert back to what it used to be and ensure that whoever is going to superintend over agencies and Departments is well trained, people who know their onion and whoever is going to oversee the ministry will be someone who is a thoroughbred in the sector who can translate the policies into reality.”
Photo: Dr. Segun Musa, CEO of Widescope Group.
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