By Steve Agbota, [email protected]
On May 29, 2015, when President Mohammed Buhari came to power with the hope of reforming and transforming the Nigerian economy, he categorically promised that his administration would diversify the economy through the non-oil exports.
With that pledge, there were high expectations as the Nigerian business community especially operators in the maritime sector were elated that a messiah who would end their woes, empower them and grow the industry was already with them.
But after finishing his first four years in office, stakeholders had concluded that none of what he promised the maritime sector was met by Buhari’s administration.
While presenting his speech at the 2019 Democracy Day celebrations at Eagle Square in Abuja, he said his administration would invest in the maritime sector and address other challenges facing the industry.
There and then, he promised to modernise and reform the Nigerian ports and tackle all the challenges frustrating the development of port systems across the country.
“I recognised the fact that it still takes too long for goods to be cleared at our seaports and the roads leading to them are congested. It still takes too long for routine and regulatory approvals to be secured. These issues affect our productivity and we are committed to addressing them permanently,” he said.
According to Buhari, despite the enormous resources pledged to infrastructure development in these past four years, there remains the urgent need to modernise our ports, roads and bridges, electricity grid, and rail systems.
Today, majority of his promises were not either met or felt in the maritime sector as the industry witnessed colossal collapse of infrastructure, bridges are caving in, bad roads, no electricity grid and rail system.
Today and barely 5 days to the end of the Buhari administration, two premier seaports-Apapa and Tin-Can Island ports are at the verge of collapse, as infrastructure in these ports such as quay aprons and parameter fencing are begging for help.
Today, also Nigeria port is still one of the most expensive ports in the world, as a result several Nigerian bound cargoes are diverted to neigbouring ports while many businesses around ports and land borders have closed shops and thousands of employees thrown out of job.
Stakeholders who spoke with Daily Sun, lamented that maritime sector was neglected in Buhari’s eight years, as they said the sector is seriously bleeding, terribly bastardised and almost collapsing amid lots of policies summersault.
Today, Nigeria is still struggling to found its feet in the global maritime space. The absence of a Nigerian shipping company in the container shipping business is chiefly attributable to the absence of government support and a harsh operating environment.
But in fairness, one can say Buhari administration had invested in the maritime security to curb piracy in the nation’s territorial waters up to the Gulf of Guinea.
Daily Sun learnt that the present administration invested about $195 million in the maritime security architecture with the Deep Blue Project, championed by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) including the signing into law of the Suppression of Piracy and Other Maritime Offences (SPOMO) Act. These have led to significant reduction in piracy and kidnappings, arrests and successful prosecution of criminals, leadership of regional maritime collaboration forum to tackle insecurity and Nigeria’s removal from IMBs.
With such records, international maritime bodies such the International Martime Organisation (IMO), the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), and BIMCO, have all commended NIMASA and the DG of NIMASA, Bashir Jamoh for adopting a new strategy to stem criminalities in the Gulf of Guinea.
On the above, stakeholders said they acknowledged the success recorded in fighting piracy and other maritime crimes.
The stakeholders said investing in maritime security architecture is recognised but cannot be enough criteria to say Buhari did well in the last eight years even as they scored him 10 per cent.
Apart from failure to tackle infrastructure issues and other related challenges, Buhari has not been able to disburse the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) to the indigenous ship owners to acquire vessels in order to compete with their foreign counterparts even as Nigeria is said to be losing almost $12 billion to foreign ship owners annually.
Speaking with Daily Sun, an importer, Fred Bonniface, said the President has the opportunity to write his name on the plata of gold in the maritime sector by solving all the major problems affecting the industry, adding that the President was busy building rail lines to Niger Republic while none of the nation’s ports are connected to rail.
“You bring in cargoes from Asian countries and Europe without any hindrance but when the cargoes arrive our ports, to clear the cargoes become an issue due to bottlenecks associated with clearance procedures. By now I expect all our ports to be automated under Buhari’s eight years in office. If you ask me to give him pass mark, I can only score 10 him per cent.
He said the President has failed his campaign promises in 2014/2015 and 2017/2018, that his administration would reverse the import duty on vehicles, which rose from 10 per cent to 35 per cent plus additional 35 per cent surcharge, making it to 70 per cent tariff on imported vehicles, adding that instead of reversing it, they recently added additional charges to it, which will see more cargoes to be diverted to the neigbouring countries.
He said the policy only aid smuggling of vehicles into Nigeria because importers find that high duty on imported vehicles unnecessarily high where neighbouring countries charges 10 per cent and less.
He said that importers would rather go and land their vehicles in the ports of neighbouring countries and smuggled them into the country.
Conversely, the acting National President, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Dr Kayode Farinto said: “We can’t say totally the industry has not move forward particularly, remember when Buhari came onboard we are still importing rice but I give that to him, these days now; we are exporting our rice because it is what we produce now we consume.
“Most of the policies he has implemented even though we have policy summersaulting here and there, it doesn’t mean we are stagnant, we are never stagnant except that the speed, which we move is a snail speed.
“The speed of development and growth in the maritime industry, what we is expected is not what we have. Ordinarily, one would have expected we have gone more than where we are today but we have policies summersault, we have the issues of dollar fluctuating here and there as a result of our weak naira,” he said.
He added that Nigerian ports have a situation where policy formulators are not carrying stakeholders along and there are challenges here and there.
“If I want to score Buhari in the maritime industry, I can score him, I will give 40 per cent and that is just a pass mark because we expected a lot in the maritime industry. We thought Buhari will be the messiah that will save the industry but that is far from the truth from what is on ground, we have all seen it,” he added.
He said that by now stakeholders should be talking about the nation’s intermodal transport system, port development plan, which have been put in place in the last 10 years, maybe for another 20 years, these are not available.
“We give that to him that heavy vessels can not call our waters through the Lekki Deep Seaport because it is happening during his administration and for the fact that some of the cargoes we are losing to the neigbouring countries will be coming back and transshipment cargoes which we have lost in the last five years are definitely coming back now. So it is not as if he has done bad but expect that the level of development that we expected from Buhari government is not what we have,” he said.
Meanwhile, National President of National Council of Managing Directors of Customs Licensed Agents (NCMDCLA), Lucky Amiwero said Buhari did not even score 10 per cent in the maritime sector, saying nothing was done in the maritime sector in the last eight years of the present government.
“Buhari came in 2016, scanners at the ports were bad. It was just of recen they replace the scanners even up till now we still have problems with scanners. What is it has he done that people are scoring him average?
“When we are talking about maritime sector, we are looking at various areas such as transaction in the port, the process and procedure, convention, turnaround time for ship and others. Today, we have one of the most worst port in the world, the port that is not regulated and most of the things we are doing in the port are not legal.
“Customs can wakes up and start its own law, most of the things Customs are doing is not back by law. Looking at the shipping companies, terminals, gridlock and we have most of the expensive ports in the world because the port is not properly regulated,” he said.
He said shipping companies, terminal operators, Customs, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and everybody do what they feel like, saying someone should tell Nigerians and maritime stakeholders what this government has done to improve the maritime sector.
He added that there is no rail connecting the nation’s ports, adding that there is no rail to Apapa port, Lekki port, Tin Can port and people cannot access their goods in the port and people have the same problem in Port Harcourt and other eastern Ports.
“For eight good years is a wasted years of President Buhari in the maritime sector. I cannot score him 40 per cent. The whole system has been destroyed. We collect POF and all manners of charges and the Finance Minister approved them. They have not done anything with these charges to improve the system at the ports. We run a port that has nothing to do with other port in the world.
“Up til now, they have not been able to disburse the cabotage fund to local ship owners. A lot of things are wrong and nobody is doing anything about it. The maritime bank is there, for eight this people just sit down there and they are not doing anything. What all the agencies, what is their work? Some of them leave their work and doing other things and collecting revenue. Is that their function?” he stated.
According to him, up till now since Buhari came in, there is no law on concession, there is no law on what is happening in the port.
“No law in the port. So what are they talking about? The road to the Port is a problem and going into the port is a problem. How many miles from Oshodi to the port? They collect 7 per cent for port development level, what are they doing with the money? Tell me what these agencies collecting this money has done for the past eight years.
“You can’t just wake up and say you want to quickly to go port for consignment and get it out. Customs is doing things on their own. The Minister cannot control them and the economy. What the Minister is doing is to come and promote. That is what only the Minister is doing. We are tied to system that is almot collapse.
“Most of the people heading the agencies at the port are not expert and they don’t know anything about the port system. They don’t have any stake in the port. How many committee have they serve before? They are not expert and cannot talk as authority because they don’t serve in any committee in the port. We need to get the right people to get things done,” he explained.