As the year 2025 gradually unfolds, the National Vice President of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents, ANLCA, Prince Olusegun Oduntan has said that his utmost desire is to see the Nigerian Shippers’ Council amendment bill otherwise known as the Nigeria Shipping and Ports Economic Regulatory Agency Bill before the National Assembly passed and subsequently signed into law by the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu so as to give the agency the teeth to bite.
Oduntan who made this known in an interview with our correspondent in Lagos recently, believed that with the coming into effect of that law, a lot will change for good in the Nigerian port system with its overall impact on the Nigerian economy.
He noted that following the absence of a legal instrument to back up the economic regulatory role of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, NSC, most of the gains the agency was making could not be sustained and expanded.
“I am a member of the Nigerian port Process Manual Review Committee and I could see that during the time of Fadipe as Head of Compliance, a lot was achieved. In as much as that man tried, the whole thing is slipping little by little because the Shippers’ Council has not been backed up by law. So, they must see to it that the new bill comes alive at the National Assembly this year.
“The shipping companies here are giving us a lot of problems. Cargo comes, some people operating here are still not on a good technology measure. Your cargo arrives, you don’t know, you are not notified on time. They take this cargo to one place and take that to another place. That is not supposed to be. Some people are still doing the normal primitive method, not deploying technology that they are supposed to have put in place and they are operating here.
“Sometimes, you cannot even access them. You can imagine your cargo is coming, there’s no representation. You have to be looking for which of the lines, some of them are not even operating from here and when they are operating from here, the person who is giving directives is not resident here or you send mail, nobody is answering you.
“All these ones boil down to demurrage. The terminals are there as well. Their technology must be up to date. It must be top-notch such that when a vessel arrives, at least in the next two weeks, we should be able to know how many of these cargoes are remaining, which ones have gone out, which ones are remaining. Messages should be sent but some of them don’t do that except for terminals like PTML and maybe AP Moller. But all others, nothing!
“It’s either you pay, even if you manage to get your TDO, you still have to do it manually which is not supposed to be so”, he said.
Oduntan argued that with the passage of this bill and subsequent signing in to law by the President would put an end to all the infractions committed by the shipping and terminal operators as well as other government agencies and port operators in general.
Asked if the terminal operators, by their performance in the past deserved to get their concession agreement renewed by the federal government, he said, “Some of them don’t! But I don’t know, you know this is Nigeria because there’s supposed to have been an assessment from time to time. A questionnaire or evaluation slips are supposed to be sent to each of the associations for feedback so that we can rate them in terms of equipment, staff dispositions to freight forwarders, their customer relations practice, the CSR initiatives and so on.
“You get to some terminals, you don’t even have seats to sit down and all of us are entering banks to see how they treat their customers because it’s your money. But here, you see some people under a tent, that’s where they get to sit while the terminal staff will sit inside the comfort and you are bringing billions to them.”
On the extent of progress made in implementing the resolutions reached at a meeting between the shipping and terminal operators and the freight forwarders on increment in port charges facilitated by the NSC under Barr. Emmanuel Jime, the ANLCA NVP stated, “Unfortunately, the then ES, after midwifing that meeting, because we were part of the people that made recommendations for a Help Desk to be set up at different terminals because you cannot sit down in your office there and be administering what is happening at the port and he did. In fact, it was during Bello’s regime that we started clamouring for that before Jime came.
“Unfortunately, may be about one or two months into it, Jime was removed. Now, let me tell you, I said something earlier, Shippers’ Council amendment bill has to come in place before they can fully implement what they need to implement. If not, we are just deceiving ourselves.”
“That time they made that promise (to establish help desks at the terminals), they (NSC) implemented it and that was fine and our people were reporting situations and you can see, that time, not when it’s time for vessel inspection, Immigration will go on his own, customs will say I don’t have time, Plant Quarantine will say at my time. All of them go together, do the inspection and they don’t take anything from the vessel and we were being respected.
“In fact, there was a commendation that Nigerian agencies have changed their approach. Not whenever you enter the vessel, you are asking where is your PR and you jump and take things inside, no! Because the standard rule is that all of you should go inside (the vessel) and nobody should take anything out of the vessel and the help desk helped to curb the excesses of the officers too because some officers can go for inspection and will just be picking anything.
“But some of these things are no longer there and you know the impediment, until that amendment bill is passed and signed into law, that’s the only time we will get it right.
Speaking on the legal battle between the shipping and terminal operators and the Shippers’ Council on the validity of the economic regulatory role of the NSC, he said, “They are battling with people that have means more than they do. I think they approached the Supreme Court. If you have judgement, that might not be the end and until it goes to the Supreme Court, that’s when you have the final say.”
Photo: Prince Olusegun Oduntan, National Vice President, ANLCA.
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