Seaport terminal operators and shipping companies are currently jittery following the Federal Government’s resolve to review the 2006 port concession project in an attempt to address the numerous controversies trailing its implementation.
The government is also believed to be planning an audit of Nigeria’s ports infrastructure to authenticate operators’ claims of acquiring multi-million dollar cargo handling equipment amidst a flurry of petitions pointing to the contrary at the complaints unit of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC).
Daily Sun however learnt that in the buildup to the impending review, some stakeholders are already mobilising against it in an attempt to allow the status quo to continue.
Such resistance is however coming after about nine years of having operated without a substantive Port Economic Regulator (PER) which also allowed them exclusive right of determining what charges importers and agents paid for services at the terminals.
But keen watchers of the industry are already attributing the constraints encountered at the ports to the unfriendly operating environment, which has turned it into the most expensive facility in the entire West African sub-region.
They have also blamed this scenario for being responsible for the huge cargo diversions to neighbouring West African ports, a development that has robbed the Federal Government of huge revenue over the years.
It was perhaps against this backdrop that maritime analysts are insisting there was an urgent need to review the port concession agreement especially as the tenure of most terminal operators will be winding up by next year, thus giving government enough room to correct the fundamental flaws of the 2006 exercise.
