The various ligations against the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) over their eligibility to tinker with terminal and shipping charges by terminal operators and shipping lines are not unexpected.
When the shippers’ council was pronounced the ports economic regulator by the federal government recently, it came with mixed feelings.
First, stakeholders were glad to see that the much clamoured port regulator was eventually birthed; hoping that the era of arbitrariness was gone and new order restored.
On the other hand, the elites had foreseen the role council’s role as a herculean task not because the management and staff of NSC are bereft of ideas but because the pronouncement did not come with the major tool of achieving the purpose for which they were so pronounced, no legal backbone.
In some of the council’s consultation to synergise, with stakeholders and seek the know-how of successfully carrying out the new function; experts had dwelled so much on legal hammer as their major tool in the regulatory role.
However, “Its first major regulatory role, the Shippers’ Council’s eligibility to slash charges of terminal operation and shipping lines has been questioned as it been dragged to the court by the duo.
In this instance, the council’s one year regulatory life span may end without achieving any substance expected of it since its decisions or interventions may be greeted by court injunctions or restraints there by keeping them at bay.
What NSC requires is the teeth to bite because what is the essence of a dog trained only to bark and cannot bite? Soon, people will get used to its barking and take it for granted.
If the best is expected from the council in its regulatory role especially to usher a reform into the port, the needful is needed.
Anyway, we just hope that the end of the matter will be better than the beginning as the bible as said.
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