Shippers’ Council Board Chairman raises fresh hope for CTN, NTC Bill

Abiola Seun |

The Governing Board of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), has raised the hope of maritime stakeholders for the approval of International Cargo Tracking Notes (ICTN) and the National Transport Commission (NTC) bill that President Muhammadu Buhari declined assent.

Speaking yesterday at the familiarisation visit by the chairman and members of the governing board to the council, the Chairman, Hon. Bashir Sheriff Machina, said it will lobby the Federal government and the National Assembly for the approval of the NTC bill and the ICTN.

He however assured the management of the council of readiness to ensure that the feats are achieved.

According to him, shippers’ Council transmutting to NTC and the approval of ICTN would help grow the economy.

He said, “these are useful proposals that as a body of the government whose mandate and how we will achieve that is natural that we will lobby, interact, complain, explain and make those responsible especially the ministry of Transportation, the National assembly -Senate and House of Representatives – other people responsible around the President and even the President himself to show them the importance of transmuting and also having ICTN which is also a trade platform around the world.”

“It will be explained that the ICTN is part of a trade development platform that was initiated worldwide and Nigeria is expected to comply. We will make all stakeholders that are supposed to be part of the approval know these two things are of great importance to the Council and the Nigerian economy.”

Hon. Machina however explained that CTN, if achieved, would help the council generate money into the coffers of the Federal government and join the group of revenue generating agency.

“We will do all we could to see that we achieve these two feats for our great country Nigeria. The CTN if achieved will be a way of generating revenue for our country. We should be seen to be adding value and not just taking allocation from the Federal government. We should be seen to be adding to the coffers and not taking all the time and this can happen if everyone will be thinking of adding value, we should think aggressively.

”This agency is a key player in achieving or transforming the nation’s transport sector because the transport sector is key to the economy and development of business and survival of human live,” he said.

Speaking earlier, the Executive Secretary of the Council, Hassan Bello disclosed that the Council would leverage on the connection of the Board Chairman to further grow the Council.

Bello said the Council as port economic regulator must make meaningful contributions to the growth of the nation’s economy.

“Nigeria Shippers’ Council must make meaningful contributions to the economy of this country through the maritime industry.

”We are the port economic regulators and we oversee functions and efficient competitions for providers of shipping services and we have oversight on all the mode of Transportation.

“We are expanding, growing the economy and also supervising the modern transport infrastructure and like people will say if the nation’s transport infrastructure is slow and lazy, it will translate to a slow and lazy economy but if we have a modern and efficient transport infrastructure, that means the economy will be efficient and strong because transportation drives the economy.

“We will be leveraging on the experience, connection and understanding of the Board Chairman to unlock those doors, to help the Council grow because we are always in the process of growing.

”We have achieved much but there are numerous challenges that we hope that working with the Board, it will allow us reach the target we set for ourselves,” Bello said.