$300 Passage Fee: NIWA’s Daily Pursuit of Revenue on Dangerous Waterways

Last February, the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), in a memo dated February 4th 2019, shocked the distraught operators on the Nigeria’s inland waterways that all ocean and sea-going vessels that access the Nigerian Ports through the inland waterways will pay a levy of “$300 passage fee” per day or its equivalent.

Expectedly, this decision drew the flak from the angry stakeholders who felt slighted by the audacity of the NIWA management to make such pronouncement amidst the widespread anxiety and uncertainty on our inland waterways.

The Lagos Berthing Meeting took exception to what it considers an imposition of the controversial fee and thus asked its members to ignore the directive.

The reaction of this group sums up the general resentment of stakeholders to the new fee imposed by the NIWA authority.

It clearly shows how unpopular the decision was among the critical operators who felt the agency has not done enough in terms of securing and safeguarding the lives of users of the inland waterways who often die in the incessant boat mishaps that have become the hallmark of inland water transportation in the country.

We at the nigeriamaritime360.com share the same sentiments of alarm and disgust at NIWA’s lack of scruples and its inordinate passion for more revenue while our inland waterways are daily becoming dangerous and unsafe for navigation.

Even though we concede the right to collect the fee to the agency as statutorily conferred on it by the Act establishing it, but our concern is the propriety of the decision at a time the agency should put up measures to halt the incessant carnage on our inland waterways.

Our concerns are further exacerbated when we juxtapose the vast sources of revenue accessible to NIWA with its statutory responsibilities and duties but for which the current unsafe navigation on our inland waterways has exposed its gross incompetence and inefficiency.

In the National Inland Waterways Authority Act 2016 as amended, the agency has vast sources of funding which include but not limited to the following:

—monies accruing to the authority through appropriation made to it by the national assembly

—charges, dues, levies, royalties and fees collected by the agency.

—concession fees

–annual fees for licensing and permits issued to boat operators, jetty owners, sand dredgers etc.

—gifts, grants, aids and subventions.

–assets that may from time to time be vested in or accrue to the agency.

—sums collected or received by the agency for services rendered.

—annual rents paid by companies or government agencies, departments whose operations and services are within the national inland waterways, including those related to electric power generation and distribution, refineries, oil and gas pipelines, explorations, exploitation and transportation, telecommunications facilities.

We are convinced that the agency is aware of these enormous sources of revenue which it must have tapped into.

Our question now is what does the agency do with this quantum of vast resources at its disposal?

Our query is based on the fact that, given these resources, why should NIWA look the other way while our inland waterways transportation is gradually becoming a death trap?

Nigeria has the second largest waterways in Africa with 8,600 kilometres of inland waterways and an extensive coastline of about 852 kilometres.

As a result of these natural attributes, 22 out of 36 states in Nigeria use water transportation as a means of conveyance.

To our surprise, the authority charged with the responsibility to make this mode of transportation safe and secured has largely gone to sleep but ironically awake to the avaricious need to make more money.

Schedule 1 part iii of its enabling Act confers certain duties and responsibilities on NIWA to be carried out to make our inland waterways safe and secured.

They include but not limited to the following:

–ensure the development of infrastructural facilities for a national inland waterways network connecting the creeks and the rivers with the economic centres using the River Ports as nodal points for inter-modal exchange.

—undertake capital and maintenance dredging within the national inland waterways.

—survey, remove and retrieve derelicts, wrecks and other obstructions from the national inland waterways.

—install and maintain lights, buoys and all aids to navigation along water channels and banks on the national inland waterways.

–erect and maintain gauge, kilometre boards, horizontal and vertical control marks.

—control and clear water hyacinth and other aquatic weeds along national inland waterways.

—-safety, regulation, maintenance and safe navigation of the Nigerian National Inland Waterways.

It is needless therefore to argue that the alarming rate of boat mishaps on our inland waterways is an eloquent testimony that NIWA has carried out its statutory assignments in the breach.

Most of the accidents occur as a result of the wrecks and other derelicts buried underneath the waters for which the agency was statutorily empowered to remove from our inland waterways channels.

Not until its Managing Director, Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora was a victim last year when his boat nearly capsized when it ran against undergrowth that the Authority made a feeble attempt to clear some of the wrecks.

It is instructive and equally sad to note that about 80 percent of boats accidents happen at night.

Yet, the enabling Act gives an expressed mandate to NIWA to ” install and maintain lights, buoys and all aids to navigation along water channels and banks on the national inland waterways” to aid night navigation, we suppose.

But alas, the authority, rather than carry out these important statutory duties, often relapses into a blame game whenever one of such numerous mishaps happens, gleefully telling the irritated but grieving public that it has warned boat operators against night travels.

We are aghast at this naked show of dereliction of duties which sadly has turned what could have otherwise been safe and secured water transportation into a mine field.

This is why, just like the angry Lagos Berthing Meeting operators and other aggrieved stakeholders took exception to another round of revenue haunt by NIWA when it has not justified those ones it has collected by improving and enhancing safety in inland waterways transportation.

Our position should however not be misconstrued.

Our sentiment is driven by the desire to see safe and secured inland water transportation as an attractive alternative to other modes of transportation which are already overstretched.

It therefore grieves our heart to witness the harvest of death on our inland waterways in what clearly was the result of negligence, dereliction of duties, gross incompetence and crass inefficiency of the agency charged with its care and maintenance.

It is preposterous for such agency which we consider to have failed in its functions to engage in another inordinate revenue haunt when it has not judiciously utilised those already accrued to it.

We therefore totally reject the imposition of the current $300 passage fee on vessels and the decision by the agency to collect this controversial levy, no matter its legal backing, is condemnable.

We urge the Federal government to intervene in this matter before it breads resistance and antagonism from the concerned party which may cause avoidable crisis in the industry.

Government should instead make NIWA to explain the gory accident scenes we witness at regular intervals on our inland waterways and how it expends its resources.

We reject the “escapist “method employed by the agency when its General Manager, Lagos Zone, Muazu Sambo was trying to rationalise and moderate the controversial fee following its rejection by the Lagos Berthing Meeting.

His attempt to exempt the vessels calling at the Apapa and Tincan Island ports and limiting the payment of the controversial fee to vessels berthing at NIWA -controlled jetties and river ports does not debilitate our stand against the fee.

The collection of the fee, if allowed to stand, will trigger chain reactions on the prices of goods in the market.

As a result of the fee, the ship owners will pass the cost to the owners of the consignment who will in turn pass it to the final consumers.

Another worrisome aspect of the issue is that the agency will need to deploy more staff to enforce compliance.

This is more so when the collection of the fee, which the agency said it will be test run first in Lagos, later gets to other port locations in the country.

Our concern stems from the fact that the agency is grossly understaffed as it said to have about 500 staff nationwide.

By our own reckoning, the agency may need to deploy more than half of its staff to enforce compliance by the time the new revenue haunt of the agency goes nationwide.

If this is the case, the other critical duties of the agency to secure inland waterways for safe transportation, which is already imperilled, will further be jeopardised.

Our position is that NIWA should busy itself on how to make our inland waterways safe and secured by diligently carrying out its statutory duties and stop the frequent mishaps on the waterways.

This will be more comforting and dignifying than to waste precious times in the pursuit of ocean and sea-going vessels for the payment of the phantom $300 passage fee.