The victory of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) at the Appeal Court in Lagos, last week, over the terminal operators in the nation’s port on the issue of the introduction of arbitrary charges has been eliciting reactions of different shades. It was a land mark judgment, which was an affirmation of a High court ruling earlier secured. One of those that quickly joined in the flow of reactions, was the Acting Director General/Chief Executive Officer of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), Engr. Chidi Izuah. He sent in a terse congratulatory message, saying the victory is “A testament to the rigorous application of the rule of law, a key plank of the change agenda of President Mohammed Buhari and the tenacity as well as determination of the Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer to ensure the right thing is done to grow Nigeria’s maritime sector”.
This may not be the end of the legal battle as the terminal operators could be eyeing the Supreme Court because paying a whopping 1trillion naira as refunds of the illegimate terminal charges at this season of cash crunch amounts to economic suicide. It was a needless legal fisticuff which the NSC was grudgingly dragged into. But it has left some sour taste and statements behind. One, the terminal operators are not concession-agreement-compliant. Two, they are disobedient and obsessed with profit motive without regard for patriotism. Three, they can sabotage government’s reform efforts at will as a cartel.
What most observers, stakeholders and commentators found absurd and comical is their challenge also in court of the port economic status granted to the NSC, despite the Federal Government official gazette to that effect. Their argument is that the new status lacks a legislative backing. But they left wisdom and reason behind. The port reforms which gave birth to the terminal operators equally lacks enabling legislative backing . They are only existing by the grace of a limited window in the Nigerian Ports Authority(NPA) Act of 1955 articulated under the mid-wife of the colonial masters. And so, if the windows are well defined, the entire concession exercise would amount to ultra vire.
So, just as the port concession was determined by the need for a paradigm shift for efficiency, so was the need for a port economic regulator determined by a greater need for a better service delivery and competition.
The disobedient posturing of the terminal operators is rearing its head again in waste collection and administration in the port environment.
This explains the reason the Tin Can Island port access way to Apapa by Expressway is ever grossly littered with heaps of refuse dumped over night by the terminal operators. Unfortunately, the long-drawn political shadow- boxing between the Lagos State Government and her Private Sector Participation(PSP) operators made it difficult to be evacuated. At a point, it was argued that the Lagos State Waste Management Agency(LAWMA) was directly responsible for the evacuation of the heaps of waste on the road. It was all blame, while the volumes of the refuse increase daily with its cake effect and health hazard to port users.
With the major road filled with the waste, the terminal operators seem to have devised another means of disposing their waste. This ugly development has always pitched them against the official collector and evacuation company in the port environment, Seaview Properties Limited. Just on the 17th January, 2018, the officials of Seaview Properties caught a truck disposing wastes on one of its collection points at the Tin Can Island Port environ. The truck which was arrested afterwards came from Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) terminal.
This unwholesome act castes a blight on the good environmental management efforts of the management of Seaview Properties and NPA, its parent body.
It beats every good sense of reason that terminal operators would not like to help keep the port environment clean by disposing their internally generated waste at the government approved dump sites in Ojota, among others. Does this negligence make them socially responsible?
The land lord of the port, NPA simplified the waste evacuation process by handing the responsibility to its subsidiary company, Seaview Properties, which it pays for services rendered. Why wouldn’t the terminal operators engage the services of this company for a token fee rather than always trying to dump wastes at their collection points after they have evacuated the refuse collected?
The management of Seaview Properties under this new management led by Engr. Musa Wada and the action-packed management of NPA led by Ms. Hadiza Bala-Usman, has been very pro-active in their discharge of duties, especially as it concerns the management of port environmental cleanliness.
An angry port user puts the oddity thus: “They should not engage in such an holy habit so that they don’t give NPA and Seaview Properties bad name because they have been making efforts to ensure that the ports are sanitized”.
The rejuvenated Seaview Properties has the capacity to keep the port clean in line with the new Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI). It has compactors, mechanized sweepers, sorting and recycling waste bins for regular collection of refuse.
The port users and terminal operators should help the Seaview Properties and NPA to help Lagos state join the league of advanced countries with world class holistic environmental management system which is the philosophy behind the CLI, the new waste management direction of the state.
However, what is the tonnage of waste generated in the port environment daily if 13,000 tonnes of waste is generated daily in Lagos?
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