Maritime Workers Union go commercial

—registers two companies to bid for contracts

By ZION Olalekan

The Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) may have relegated its core function of unionism to the background as it has now gone into full blast business ventures.

To this end, the union has registered two limited liability companies to bid for contracts from terminal operators who are its principals to cater for its members.

President General of MWUN, Comrade Adewale Adeyanju, speaking in Lagos, said that his leadership has evolved from being a trade union into a business orientated maritime union.

He announced that the union has registered two companies; a haulage and stevedoring company, as well as an export business company.

Adeyanju said that soon, the registered companies would be used to bid for jobs from terminal operators and other stakeholders.

Meanwhile, the union at a Branch Working Committee meeting held in Kirikiri, Apapa Lagos Thursday also called on the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) to kick-start a fresh registration and documentation of all dockworkers operating across seaports in Nigeria.

He however lamented that five years after issuing biometric card to dockworkers, NIMASA has been foot dragging in its efforts to renew the card for workers.

He said the previous biometric card which was issued by the agency did not carry accurate information on the dockworkers. He charged NIMASA to put machinery in motion to make sure that all dockworkers all over Nigerian seaports are well registered and given biometric identity card.

“The maritime workers union of today wants to diversify into business because since I came onboard as the PG, it is not the way it was before, our former PG used his personal money to send us abroad for training, but today we are running the union as purely union”

“Under two years we have registered a befitting company, we have diversified from being a trade union into a business orientated maritime workers. We have registered two companies, one is haulage and stevedoring, the other one is export business, all the certificates have been given to us”

“NUPENG, NURTW and other unions are into business, it is only our union that depends on check up dues”

“We would like you all to support this idea because we would be coming to terminal operators for jobs, we want to create employment for our members” Adeyanju said

While lamenting NIMASA’s stance on the biometrics, he said, “they promised giving it to us but up till now we have not heard from them, we are appealing to them to expedite action on these issues”

“The stevedoring contractors have trained dockworkers to the present standard, but we want NIMASA who happens to be our regulatory agency, who supposed to midwife between the dockworkers and the terminal operators to come onboard and make sure that the biometric identity card that was issued to us about four years ago is long overdue and expired”

He warned that the union would take drastic actions against terminal operators who engage the services of unregistered dockworkers.

He also announced that the leadership of the union is embarking on a tour of all terminals and jetties in the country to flush out impostors.

To this he said “We are sending a warning to them, we would go round all the terminals for assessment, any terminal or jetty that we find not to be registered, the union would not hesitate to apply auction ‘B’ which is to alert the security agents”