BPE urges N/Assembly to pass Ports and Harbour, NTC bills
From Eugene Agha, Lagos
The Acting Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Dr Vincent Akpotaire, has urged members of the National Assembly to pass into Law, the Ports and Harbour Bill, the National Transport Commission Bill as well other bills so that critical aspects of the port reform would become effective.
The Acting Director-General said the non-passage of these bills had rendered critical aspects of port reform ineffective.
Dr Vincent Akpotaire made this disclosure in a paper entitled: “Port Reform, Objectives, Benefits and Challenges’’, presented at a two-day retreat held in Lagos at the weekend.
The retreat which was organised by the House Committee on Ports, Harbour and Waterways, the Federal Ministry of Transportation and its agencies attracted critical stakeholders in the maritime sector across the country.
Akpotaire revealed the Ports and Harbour Act was meant to strengthen the NPA to perform its role of landlord and technical regulator.
According to him, the National Transport Commission Act will establish a commission as the economic regulator for all the transport modes except aviation.
He said: “The speedy passage of the port reform bills is necessary to establish an efficient, strong legal and regulatory framework that will ensure fairness and protect the interest of all port operators.
“The assessment of the BPE was that an appreciable level of success had been achieved in all the anticipated areas of port concession in the last ten years. The concessionaires had invested in both cargo handling equipment and upgrade of facilities. Operators had secured their terminals in line with the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code.
“Improved operational efficiency has been recorded in our ports. Ship waiting time reduced from 21-24 days to 0-24 hours. Average Ship turn around time reduced from 12 days to about 4 days. Average dwelling time of containers reduced from over 30 days to less then 10 days.’’