Stakeholders in the maritime Industry have called on the Federal Government to urgently review charges for port services that will reflect the current economic status.
This was against the backdrop of high cost of doing business in the country in favour of terminal operators and users.
The call was made at the 3rd edition of Taiwo Afolabi Annual Maritime conference with the theme “Port cost and port charges: A recurring decimal under the port reform regime.”
The Chairman of Port Consultative Council , Otunba Kunle Folarin, who gave the keynote address, traced the history of port reform in Nigeria to 1993, when the Federal Ministry of Finance took steps to address the issue of rising cost in the delivery of port services. This, he said, was with a view to harmonising the functions of all the agencies operating at the seaports.
He listed the objectives of the port concession programme, that ushered in private terminal operators into the port system in 2006 to include transferring port operations/cargo handling from public to private sector to enhance efficiency, enhance and competitiveness, relieve the government of the huge investments in port infrastructure and equipment and also attract private investments to develop and modernise the ports, among others.
He further informed that port costs is a collective responsibility of both the government and private sector, saying such costs represent monetary measure of what port users pay to the authority, terminal operators and other ancillary service providers for using facilities and services of a port.
He also said that there was the need for both commercial and technical regulations, which he described as the application of official controls or processes in terms of policies or set of rules, which are carried out in the implementation or enforcement standards set by by an authorised agency according to the provisions of the law.
His words: “Technical regulations deal substantially on the procedures and processes of the harbour and ports environment operations while commercial regulation is with regards to shipping and related services, particularly in setting the modalities and guidelines of operations, including charges, levies and applicable taxes. Other principal issues covered are freight rate administration, control and the fixing of fair benchmarks and their enforcement.
“On the other hand, the role of port economic regulator should include fair hearing, anti-monopoly and fair trade practices, rights and obligations of all practitioners and mediation, conciliation and arbitration.”
He listed strategies to reduce port cost to include government policies, reduction of customs duty and taxes, setting up effective and efficient single window platform, regulating the port and shipping industry, especially service and cost, port infrastructure development and common user areas.
On the way forward, he observed that the broad objectives of the port reform have been hampered by several fundamental issues from conception, implementation processes and operations of the concession regime.
He, therefore, made a case for the political will to implement all agreed processes and terms, transparency by all stakeholders and enactment of laws that promote port productivity, fair trade, competition and elimination of monopoly.
Buttressing the points made by the keynote speaker, the executive vice Chairman of ENL consortium, Princess Vicky Haastrup, said there must be wholistic change, both from the part of the regulators and operators. She informed that high charges demanded by port regulators are one of the reasons for high cost of doing business in Nigeria.
She informed that the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency charges one of the highest rates in the world, if not the highest.
Earlier, the convener of the event, Dr. Taiwo Afolabi, in his opening remarks, observed that the issue of cost and charges at the port has remained a major concern to service providers and users as well as government agencies operating at the ports.
He wondered what percentage will the cost of service be adjusted upward to reflect the astronomical changes in the foreign exchange regime.
While noting that some of the payments to the NPA, which represents the Federal Government in the concession agreement, are made in dollar, he made a strong case for stakeholder’s inclusion in policy formulation
processes.
