Bello: Maritime Sector Alone Has the Capacity to Sustain the Economy
This year’s February, Nigeria Shippers Council clocked one year as ports economic regulator. What are your gains, challenges and vision? Let me start with the vision. The vision is simply to make Nigerian ports the preferred destination for cargoes in the western and central Africa sub-region. We also need to manifest the potential of the maritime industry so that it will have the needed impact on the economy.
The vision is to make our ports efficient and effective to attract cargo away from our competitors; to build and promote building of modern transport infrastructure to cover the huge infrastructure deficit that we have in the industry; and to guard against monopoly and encourage competition among the ports. Generally, what we are saying is Nigerian maritime industry should contribute largely to the economy of Nigeria in terms of economic growth, employment content, modern infrastructure and of course, these would translate to GDP.
We would like to see that the maritime industry has become a veritable source of revenue, exceeding oil and gas. We have examined amongst the stakeholders that sector could contribute to N7 to N8 trillion to the economy and our budget is N4 trillion.
This is the vision of Nigerian Shippers Council but this vision must come with a lot of political will from the government.
The challenges are enormous but they are not insurmountable. There is what we may call initial regulatory resistance and there will be the problem of coordination, there will be the problem of territorialism by several government and non-government people who are on the board and general resistance to change. But the most rewarding thing is that it has been known, it has been acknowledged, it has been accepted that there is an economic regulator both internally and internationally and certain practices are being curbed and we are moving towards that direction.
The challenges are that of recognition and acceptance. Another major challenge is changing the way people think about doing business; we have to re-orientate people to think about ease of doing business; we have to re-orientate various operators at the ports about technology and automation. If we have technology and automation, which we will soon embark upon, more than 70 per cent of the problem of the ports will be solved.
We are also looking at the government; the government has responsibility to bring out policies that are consistent and transparent. The government also has the responsibility to provide a conducive atmosphere for operators to operate. We have to sometimes criticise the government for its change of policy or flip-flops, there must be consistent dynamic policies that will not only guarantee but also protect investments of operators. The shipping companies and terminal operators have made investments in this sector, it is important that they realise the return on their investment and this could be made on sound economic policies of the federal government.
The Act that established Nigerian Shippers Council as ports economic regulator has just been promulgated. What do you stand to gain with this act?
The order, that is, the Nigerian Shippers Council Ports Regulator Order, which was signed by Mr. President in 2015, is a legal framework that has strengthened the work of Nigerian Shippers Council as economic regulator. We have the legal authority to act as economic regulator and for every regulator without a legal authority, it will be like you will just be advocating, looking for moral suasion and some other issues to convince everybody. But this is the legal authority that we have; it is clear because if you look at it, what it says in the preamble is that: “In exercise of the powers conferred upon me by Section 5 and Section 148 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the President makes the following order: the objectives are just simply, to: 1) Institute an effective regulatory regime at Nigerian ports for enhanced efficiency. And, 2) Address the negative impact of ports concession activities on the economy due to the absence of an economic regulator.”
So, this vacuum has been identified by the government and the government has made the appointment. Luckily, even the concession agreement signed between the NPA and concessionaires has made provisions for an economic regulator. So, this vacuum, the government has now filled through law.
Also, pursuant to that, the minister of transport has made far-reaching regulations towards effective regulation. If this is a presidential announcement, this is the way to go about it; so we have Nigerian Shippers Council Ports Economic Regulations made also in 2015 and its very succinct, clear and lucid. But most importantly, it is done by the buy-in of the stakeholders. Many institutions had a retreat, which produced this order. It is not Shippers Council law, it’s an industry thing, which is very important. Even without these concrete issues, Nigerian Shippers Council has regulatory and advisory functions in its act; that’s why the Shippers Council was asked to do this regulation.
The Cargo Tracking System is a project very dear to you. How is it going? What will the economy stand to benefit from it?
The Advanced Cargo Information System, which you called Cargo Tracking System is a trade facilitation issue because it is a very important source of information. International trade thrives on information- credible data. And that is what the cargo tracking system does. You may recall that cargo tracking system was introduced about three years back. It was suspended because it was added to the cost of doing business because the people who were operating it thought it was a revenue earning thing. It was supposed to be operated by Nigerian Shippers Council in the first instance; however, for some administrative reasons or other purposes, it was taken to another agency. Now it is back to Nigerian Shippers Council and we are going to the basic; it will not cost much; it will just be barely administrative cost but it is a source of immense information. We will know at the point of loading of the ship which cargo is coming to Nigeria. The advantage is that we will know the trade pattern and there are also security issues involved, which we will be able to determine.
This is data that will be shared with very important institutions like the Central Bank of Nigeria, NPA, Customs and NNPC. Even more important, if we have advance knowledge of information, Shippers Council will have to share this information with terminal operators, the shipping companies and customs as well as other relevant institutions. This will cut drastically delays in vessel resumption and also cargo clearing procedure because if you have information even before the ship sails- that certain ship is carrying a particular tonnage, certain type of goods is arriving this time, customs will be ready to receive it, port concessionaires are ready, the shipping companies must have prepared. So, all the delays will be minimised, if I may call it, and it is what the stakeholders have been calling for when we had our meetings and this is what we are delivering.
If we have this, it is extremely important for regulation. Information about the cargo, information about international trade, security issues and it will also stop pilferages, leakages and hemorrhages going on in port operations because if we have to have the revenue from the port operations, we have to stop all this. Advanced Cargo Information System will be able to curb these malpractices that we see. It is transparent, it is going to shared with everybody so you cannot even cut corners with this information. It is very important for clarity, it is very important for internationalisation of cargo clearance procedure. Nigeria will be at par with many country, you cannot under-declare even for the shippers- sometimes when they are not compliant, they will import tyres and say it’s something else- but with this we have clarity, everything is clear and things will be processed with procedures and we will not have delays in Nigerian ports. This will add to the competitive edge over other ports; we should not forget that we are in competition with other ports.
The maritime industry is witnessing especially the ports seamless operations. What are the contributing factors?
The contributing factor is that there is a coordinator, there is a supervisor, there is equilibrium and balance, there is effort to streamline things, there is a referee, there is an umpire. Hitherto, it was brigandage, chaos, unsightly things at the ports and Nigerian Shippers Council said we cannot have a primitive port any longer; we cannot have stone-age clearance procedure; we cannot have laissez-faire attitude to international trade at our ports. Our ports are the gateways; they are the first sign of how serious a country is. Our transportation system is a mirror that reflects the seriousness or otherwise of Nigeria and our economy hangs on the efficiency of our transportation system. Therefore, we must encourage seamless transport system; we have many modes of transport. The world now is multi-modal, we have to make sure that there is connectivity between our various modes of transport and seamless ease of doing business and that is one cardinal function of Nigerian Shippers Council. Nigerian Railway Corporation, two weeks ago, had a big meeting where we had to determine access to our off-dock terminal, which we call Inland Dry Port.
There is a lot of things happening in the transport sector and Nigerian Shippers Council is at the centre of it.
With your new role, how are you carrying stakeholders (especially the concessionaires) along and specifically, how is your collaboration with Customs, Nigeria Port Authority and other technical regulators and is there any conflict of
Our ports are the gateways;
they are the first sign of how serious a country is. Our transportation system is a mirror that reflects the seriousness or otherwise of Nigeria and our economy hangs on the efficiency of our transportation system. Therefore, we must encourage seamless transport system; we have many modes of transport. The world now
is multi-modal, we have to make sure that there is connectivity between our various modes of transport and seamless ease of doing
business and that is one cardinal function of Nigerian Shippers Council