NPA: Sailing into Oblivion

Abiye Sekibo, Transport Minister

Dismal business activities in the ports under the Private Terminal Operators (PTOs), may mark the final exit of crisis-ridden Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), the nation's maritime landlords

By Innocent Chukwu

For some months now, staffers of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), have been yawning audibly. The workers complain, with bitterness, that the authority has failed to pay their salaries and allowances over a period of time.

Many maritime analysts argue that the case of the NPA staffers since the idea of ports concessioning was mooted in 2003, has been akin to falling from the frying pan into fire. They trace the ordeal of the workers to the early days of the port reform when, according to their analysis, empty promises from the authorities regarding their (workers') welfare and job security in the post reform era, became the opium of the workers.

Even as the reform was implemented and a large number of workers relieved against their expectation, those who are left to do some skeletal work at the NPA have been caught in a web of agitation and apprehension. This disposition, according to The Source's reliable findings, is because the workers do not know what fate would befall them the next moment.

At the authority's management level, the apprehension has further been intensified leading to an alleged tampering with the NPA's revenue by some officials who do not wish to leave their future unsecured. Besides the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) investigations that revealed massive fraud and embezzlement of funds by the former board of the parastatal, the Adebayo Sarumi-led management of the NPA has constantly remained under the scrutiny of the various publics of the maritime landlord.

The Sarumi regime has been burdened with alleged inconsistencies in fund mismanagement and misappropriation. It is, for instance,common notion in the maritime business community that the presidency chose to turn deaf ears on the inadequacies of the NPA since 2003 when Sarumi was appointed its managing director, even when such allegations became glaring because Sarumi is allegedly being prepared to take over the mantle of political leadership in Oyo State, his home state come 2007.

Indeed, if snippets from political players in Oyo State, are anything to go by, Sarumi has allegedly begun to make advances to the political godfather of the State, Lamidi Adedibu and may resign soon to join the governorship race.

Instructively, having accomplished the Port reforms, it was expected of the NPA to play at least a monitoring role to the Private Terminal Operators (PTOs) based on the terms of the concessioning agreement. But the level of independence being enjoyed by the PTOs, many observe, has considerably reduced the authority to the status of a “toothless bulldog.”

Right from the commencement of their operations, the PTOs by their acts and conduct proved to the NPA that they were too sophisticated for the parastatal to rein in. Consequently, they (PTOs) went about their operations arbitrarily, not minding whose ox was gored. This disposition of the PTOs somehow left the NPA momentarily relieved to contend with the quagmire of its multiple crises.

While the NPA involuntarily went into its shell for a season, the ports, some operators lament, especially the Apapa Port became business-unfriendly. According to a group identified as Promise Land Importers Association of Nigeria, (PLIAN), the port reform implementation has become a heavy burden on importers and many other port users.

They claim that a few days after the presidential committee on ports decongestion evacuated overtime cargoes to the Ikorodu, Lagos State terminal, blockstacking of containers which has led to the congestion of the Apapa Port set in.

The argument by PLIAN and many other port users is that A.P. Moller, the PTO that won the Apapa Container Terminal bid, does not have adequate equipment to handle cargoes at the terminal. The Source gathered reliably that A.P. Moller had approached a few bonded terminal owners to lend it some of their operating equipment, but were turned down due to the firm's obstinacy in the way it allocates vessels and containers to Bonded terminals.

Customs sources told The Source that the A.P. Moller has almost paralysed business activities at Apapa port due to its insistence that most containers be transferred to the four Maerskline bonded terminals at the Kirikiri Lighter Terminal (KLT), Lagos.

The chairman of PLIAN, Chief Mike Ajah, lamented to The Source that since the full implementation of concessioning took place, clearance of goods from the Apapa port as well as other ports has become cumbersome. According to Ajah, “the problem we are having now is how to get our containers out of the port. For over five months now, we have not been able to remove even one container. My company alone has over 15 containers there (Apapa Port).”

The importers further lament that since the PTOs took over the running of the premier port, demurrage due to late clearance of goods has remained on the increase. To make matters worse, the PTOs have also increased port charges arbitrarily. This unfavourable disposition, port watchers say, runs contrary to the concessioning agreement which stipulates that the PTOs must not increase port charges until after three years and that such increment must receive the approval of the NPA.

Remarkably, the Minister of Transport, Dr. Abiye Sekibo, while reacting to the issue of arbitrary hike in port charges by the concessionaires during a recent media chat, however introduced a verbal clause to the concession agreement on port charges, to the amazement of many stakeholders.

Sekibo: “We have told them not to increase and on some areas they should increase. They should increase in areas like overtime cargoes and it will attract more charges. Any charges that will discourage congestion will be accepted.”

The minister, however, acknowledged that the NPA must be consulted before any such increase is effected as the concessioning agreement specifies. Sekibo further empowered the PTOs– though verbally to consider increasing charges in the area of demurrage so as to discourage importers who often choose to dump their goods at the ports beyond stipulated periods of time.

Meanwhile, cargo traffic in Apapa port container terminal has been on the high side despite A.P. Moller's effort to transfer many containers to KLT terminals owned by Maerskline shipping company, parent-company of AP Moller.

The Source gathered reliably that there are over 70 vessels waiting at the Lagos pilotage district hoping they would soon have space to discharge their consignments. Perhaps in a bid to save those vessels from further accumulation of bills, Sekibo reportedly ordered that ships should divert to Port Harcourt and Onne ports in Rivers State to berth. This temporary remedy, it was gathered, is however being gravely condemned by importers who say they will be the ones to bear the cost of such diversion.

Ironically, since the beginning of the furore caused by the seeming high-handedness of the private port operators, the NPA has remained silent. Even some aggrieved operators who told The Source that they had taken their case to the Authority expecting promt action, fumed that they were irritated by the parastatal's “siddon-dey-look” disposition.

In this group's assessment, the ports since after the implementation of the reforms, have remained unregulated, especially as it concerns the new terminal owners. But confused by the emerging scenario, not a few ask what roles the NPA is playing in the post- concession era. Even the PTOs, sources disclosed, have been threading softly, albeit clandestinely. Many observers interprete this recourse to imply that the PTOs are conscious of the fact that their operations in the ports have no legal backing.

Sources hinted that if the laws that would establish the concessioning of the ports are not passed before May 27, 2007, the terminal date for the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration, the in-coming administration may choose not to be favourably disposed to the hasty port reform process.

Analysts posit that if the above senario holds, the terminal investors (PTOs), may be forced to lose their huge investments in the ports to the Federal Government.

Instructively, in a somewhat well calculated move the presidency has, in the midst of the crises rocking both the NPA and PTOs risen to face the situation squarely to ensure that the predictions of the anti-concession group do not materialise.

Apparently ignoring probe reports that allegedly nailed both past and present management teams of the NPA, President Obasanjo had early June 2006 sent a bill that would scrap the NPA to the National Assembly. The Source learnt that the bill– which seeks to partition the Authority and carve out of it two new regional Port Authorities was sent to the House of Representatives through the speaker, Alhaji Aminu Masari.

The bill, if passed, will abolish the name NPA. The abolition will be carried out by the Minister of Transport on a pre-determined date and will be published in an official gazette. In place of the NPA, the bill stipulated that “Lagos Ports and Harbour Authority (LPHA)” and the “Niger-Delta Ports and Harbour Authority- (NDPHA)” will be established.

Sources said the two regional authorities would work as separate and autonomous port authorities and would be charged with the responsibility of monitoring and regulating the activities of the PTOs statutorily, a responsibility which the NPA was not empowered by law to assume.

The bill which is known as the “Ports and Harbour Authorities Bill 2006,” will among others, make provisions for private sector participation in the running of the ports. The proposed law will also empower the PTOs to “manage, control, operate and develop new ports and habours in the country.”

Although the passage of the proposed law is expected to entrench efficiency in the management of the ports and their operations, critics of ports concessioning see the bill as coming late in the day. For instance, the likes of Lucky Amiwero, a maritime analyst, argues that a law should not come after reform process is already in place.

But essentially since the reverse is the case, the NPA may continue to straddle about like a regulatory body without authority.