FG’s maritime policies in 2017 caused massive loss of jobs, drawbacks—Amiwero
Leading maritime industry analyst and National President of the National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA), Mr. Lucky Amiwero has opened on the performance of the sector since last year to date, saying “The sector was adversely affected by lack of government good policies. These policies made a lot of people to be retrenched in the sector”.
The Chief Executive Officer of Eyis Resources Limited noted that “A lot of people closed shops, everything that was done to bring the sector back to life was actually affected by bad government policies; we have bad roads leading to the ports”.
According to him, “The procedures were bad, lack of scanners in the ports and border stations. Everything was cumbersome. Ease of doing business was zero. Nothing worked in the maritime industry last year. All the money collected by the Federal Government agencies were not used for the core function”.
He argued that key maritime agencies including Nigeria Shippers’ Council (NSC), Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and NIMASA, were busy going from one seminar to the other, so the sector was bedeviled by maladministration. That affected the employment market or the bracket of the economy.
Continuing, he revealed that within the period under review, “There was movement of what is called freight components to the neighbouring countries. You find out that most of the cargos were diverted and there was nothing you could do about it because most of our ports are not friendly, our transit trade were taken over by Ghana, our trans-shipment moved out of our ports and went to Togo, Benin Republic, Cote d’Voire , Ghana and other neighbouring countries”.
“So it is our country that is not moving forward as far as the sector is concerned. Nothing is working, so it was in a very sorry state. The picture was so bad.
“Most of the people appointed to lead the Agencies in the sector were people who were learners as most of them were coming to learn. They are not experts; they are not professionals in the field, so decisions were taken not on the basis of professionalism but on political considerations.
According to him, “You don’t expect anything better to come out of that, hence it was a set- back to the economy, because the maritime sector by the virtue of NIMASA act, the local content act, the Cabotage law, the Customs and Exercise Management Act, the NPA law, the concession, all these supposed to be midwifed to bring about a new thing in the whole industry”.
