Port concession agreement provides for periodic review, now long overdue— Haastrup
Chairman, Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN), Princess Vicky Haastrup, has doused speculations of fears making the rounds in the maritime industry that terminal operators are under tension over planned review of concessions.
In an interview, she said port terminal operators are ready for the exercise because they are proud of their investments and activities since the concession in 2016.
Before now, the managing director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala Usman had given a clear indication of the agency to review all the concessions, saying the law even made it mandatory of reviews every 10 years in line with international best practices.
According to her, “A lot of developments have been carried out. Dockworkers’ problems have also become a thing of the past. Like in other countries of the world; they are usually very violent in nature and we have been able to take care of their welfare, they have been adequately taken care of”.
“We have developed the ports, we are fully equipped and we have been able to make money for the Nigerian government because we do the job and in the concession agreement, there is the payment of lease fee, there is even the payment of royalty, whereby NPA gets a portion of the money we make. That is a very good agreement because we do the job and government makes a lot of money from us, which is really good for both sides.
“But having said that, concessionaires have their roles and responsibilities, NPA also have their own responsibilities and the concessionaires have brought a lot to the table as it relates to the concession agreement itself,” Princess Haastrup said.
Only recently, Bala Usman noted that “Our port concessioning has been a success story; we need to acknowledge that the landlord model put in place over the last 11 years has been successful,” saying “We are working to review the concession agreement as we’ve said”.
Though she is yet to rollout time table for the review and templates to work on during the exercise, she stressed that “Both of us (NPA and operators) are in agreement on the need to review the concession agreement, and we are working to do that in 2017”.
“The revenues that are being raised by these terminal operators are beyond what the NPA was raising when it was operating the terminal. So indeed, the concessioning is a successful story but there are areas that need to be addressed”.
However, industry observers argue that should NPA put paid to the move to review the entire concession agreements, some concessionaires may not be very lucky to retain their terminals.
