Maritime Workers Lament Absence of NIMASA, NPA at 250 Tank Farms

By ZION Olalekan

The Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) has raised a fresh alarm that the absence of two critical agencies; Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) is causing huge revenue loss to the Federal Government especially in mooring of vessels and in stevedoring activities.

The union stated this at the recent Lunch Meeting with the Senate held at Eko Hotels in Lagos. Represented by its Assistant Organizing Secretary, Comrade Abdullahi Eroje, the union told the gathering of stakeholders how the Nigerian Navy, NIMASA and NPA through negligence made the government to lose money.

Eroje said the absence of these critical agencies at the various tank farms has left most activities in the hand of community dwellers. He added that revenue to the government would have been generating from the ancillary services was being lost to private individuals.

He added that the present shortage of junior staff in NPA was responsible for the anomaly as there were shortfall of personnel to carry out the functions of the Authority across the ports in Nigeria.

His words, “Revenue loss: like I listen to my brother, we have over 250 jetties in this country and in these tank farms, no presence of NPA officials, let anybody prove me wrong here.

“Under – declaration of tonnage, what you see there is the community presence especially in the Niger Delta area. They do the mooring, they are the stevedore and if the stevedore is posted to any of these tank farms, the Navy is there, am happy that the representative of the Chief of Naval Staff is here, they block the gate and will not allow the stevedore to go in.

NPA officials are not there. Between Oghara, Koko, we have more than twenty to thirty tank farms, no stevedore, you hardly find NIMASA there. So, the government is losing a lot of money”

“NPA as it is now, the junior staff is not more than 3,000 and before concession, they were having up to 13000 workforce and we have areas where they supposed to man, nobody is talking about that”.

On how to get rid of gridlock from the roads, he suggested that the rail lines leading to the port be revitalized.

He also pleaded with the federal government to open the railway to private investors by removing it from the exclusive list and bringing it to the concurrent list.

“The port was working before the port concession; we knew how the port looked like. The problem is evacuation of goods and services from the port.

“Last year I suggested to the Minister of Transportation that the railway lines leading to the ports should be revitalized and resuscitated.

“I heard somebody we should divert ships to Port Harcourt, if you divert ships to Port Harcourt, to bring the goods back to the customer in Lagos, it will cost you more than two million naira.

“We have rail lines constructed into the port by the colonial masters but today, the rail line is moribund.

“This problem can only be solved if rail lines constructed into the port is resuscitated. My opinion is that this committee should work hand in hand and let all our ports be connected with rail line, which will solve the problem of gridlock.

“Railway should be removed from exclusive list, let it go to concurrent list so that investors can come in,” he stated.