Port Concessioning: Appeasing the Opposition
By Francis Ugwoke
The date is not yet certain, but what is clear is that very soon, members of the Senate Committee on Marine Transport and Pivatisation will be on their way to Mexico to study the country's port concessioning programme.
Their counterparts from the House of Representatives will not be left out. And last week, just as the law makers were on the tour of port facilities in Lagos, labour leaders from the nation's maritime industry were on their way to the United States on a tour of the country's ports where concessioning has been implemented.
In Europe, America and other developed countries, private firms run the ports for the government. For instance, in Miami port, and in most ports in the US, the ports are run by private firms for the government. Miami port, which NPA had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) earlier, is a landlord seaport. Miami-Dade County in Florida State of US owns the port. However, companies leasing property at the port have substantial authority on the property they lease.
For observers, the decision by the management of BPE to sponsor the labour leaders, identified as the clog in the wheel of the progress of port concessioning programme, and the law makers is seen as part of the strategies by the government to have a smooth sail in the port reform exercise. Before, BPE appeared to have distanced itself from labour and the National Assembly.
And so, labour threatened to make the plans unrealisable.
In a joint statement, the President of MWUN, Comnrade Onikalese Irabor, and the former President of the Senior Staff Association of NPA, Comrade Pire Miadambe, had warned against the implementation of the port reform programme.
"We are prepared to give the military appendages who are still in government a good fight on this issue", the Union leaders warned.
The unionists were of the view that the plan was simply to substitute public monopoly with private monopoly, a situation which according to them tends to rape Nigerians "of their God given resources by the powerful few".
"We hereby call on all well meaning Nigerians to read between the lines and interevene urgently before Nigerians are subjected to economic slavery. We also call on the government to see the Nigerian people as the authentic holders of the sovereignty of this country which is merely and temporarily enthrusted into the hands of govenment and that such trust must be jealously guarded and protected in the overall interest of the nation. We have said enough on this issue. If government cares, let it listen. One thing is clear, we shall resist privatisation of the ports", the leaders threatened.
Soon after this statement, about three years ago, labour went to court where it got an injunction restraining government from carrying out the port reform exercise.
But labour last year changed its position and agreed to put on hold its case against the government and BPE on port reform. This was with the understanding that it will be carried along in all the reform processes. But a recommendation by the former Board of the NPA to the government that the process should be completed before the end of last year jolted labour as issues affecting workers had not been discussed.
It was at this stage that labour warned that except labour issues were discussed, its members will resist any plan of the government as far as port concessionng is concerned. Labour had noted that even as the BPE had gone so far in bringing in consultants for the concessioning, as well as called for expression of interest (EOI) in which about 110 companies responded, the law empowering government to carry out the process had not been enacted by the National Assembly.
This in turn forced the BPE to engage a Nigerian law firm, Paul Usoro & Co which prepared a draft of the Port Acts that will soon be presented to the National Assembly. Only recently, government had responded when a Committee was set up to look into labour issues. It is expected that the Committee will complete its work before the concessioning will begin.
For observers, it appears that the BPE may have realised that the latest moves remain the only way to carry out the port reform exercise. Few months ago, it was under attack from the National Assembly members and the Joint Maritime Labour Industrial Council (JOMALIC) for relegating to the background labour issues.
For the law makers and indeed labour leaders, it is expected that after the tour and all that will follow, there will be a good story to tell about concessioning. The position of the labour leaders are expected to change. And this is the same for the National Assembly members who will pass the Ports Act into law. When this happens, the BPE can then move on with its plans.
However, in the concessioning exercise, care needs to be taken to ensure that the exercise enjoys Nigerian face. Labour and the National Assembly should insist that Nigerian firms, that have the capacity to run terminal operations should be given the chance instead of foreign firms. No doubt that multinational shipping agencies will always do everything to be the highest bidder against Nigerian competitiors. But BPE should bear in mind that at the end, port users and indeed Nigerians will be made to suffer this consequence by way of higher prices of services at the ports.
In recent time, it has been argued that it will be wrong to allow multinational shipping agencies which are agents to ships that bring in goods to the ports to also be incharge of terminal operations. This is not the best, not just for security reasons, but also for the fact that the terminal operators may decide to be fraudulent in their cargo declaration which in turn determines the revenue to be realised by government.
It would be recalled that this was the case when the Tin Can Island port was under a private operator. The firm continued to underdeclare the tonnage of cargoes received in a deliberate effort to pay less to the government. It was this that led to the transfer of RORO port to the NPA in the early 80's.
President of the NPA Senior Staff Association, Comrade Peter Abolarin recalls the experience " ...we had RORO terminal and Container terminal. These two terminals which are developed into full ports today were started by private terminal operators. And at that time, what NPA did was to merely collect royalties from these people. They managed the port, they received cargo, they had their plants and equipment. They declared their annual dividend and they paid NPA paltry from that amount. But when the labour force saw that the country was bleeding as a result of the activities of the private operators, they made a case for the take-over of the terminals, and if I will tell you, the annual turn over of RORO terminal for instance was N3m and they were paying only N300,000 annually to the NPA. But for the first year of NPA take-over, we realized an annual turnover of N3 billion which is a very far cry from what was being declared by the terminal operator."
Besides, the Managing Director of the NPA, Chief Adebayo Sarumi can tell better the experience he had with the multinational shipping agencies whose charges were described as "unapplicable" in Nigeria. Sarumi made every effort to get the firms stop collecting the charges to no avail. The matter went to court, and at the end, the multinational firms opted for an out of court settlement. But most of the charges have remained in force against Nigerian importers.
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