Another strategic reform had been made at the nation’s seaports by the Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Hadiza Bala Usman.
In a terse directive aimed at nutralising monopoly and enhance operational efficiency at the ports in cargo handling, Usman announced that henceforth, every terminal in the port is free to receive any cargo in so far as they have the technical competence to handle such.
It would be recalled that before now, terminal operators were given area of speciality in cargo handling, thereby given some operators monopoly to handle certain type of cargoes.
But NPA boss made it clear that “the Authority would ensure a level playing field for all the operators and that no investor is above the law and that all must comply with laid down rules and regulations.”
In an interview with a senior staff of one of the terminals which had been on the losing end in the monopoly crisis, he said “This directive remains the best thing that will happen to the shipping industry this year as apart from creating more jobs, operators are now challenged to raise their infrastructure so that the emerging competition will be encouraging”.
