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Otunba Kunle Folarin has called on the
Federal Government to amend the present Ports concession programme,
saying that the present direction potends great dangers for the
country.
Otunba Folarin made the call last Thursday while appraising port
reforms, and the systems change in the public-private participation
policy PPP, at the UAC Training School , Apapa, Lagos .
He stated that ports industry reforms goes beyond the issues of
ports concessing also called attention that ports concessionaires
till date have failed to make each terminal a one-stop shop for
cargo clearing, even as their charges are arbitrarily hiked with
containers hitherto cleard at the cost of about 52, 000 Naira now
being presently cleared at the cost of about 200, 000 Naira.
He observed that contrary to belief that the reforms would boost job
creation within the industry, the situation on ground now is that
where 10 dockworkers are now doing the job which about 50 did
before.
He also highlighted that the operations of the concessionaires was
messing up the calculations of the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN,
calling attention to the fact that while the Naira had risen in
strenght in 118 Naira to the US dollar, prices of goods have non
theleless continue to rise in the country as a result of
increasingly rising cost of doing business in the ports.
Though he agreed that there might have been some observable
improvement in the security of cargo presently, he still insisted
that the cost of doing business was daily rising and except
government does something quick, Nigerian might one day wake up to
realize that port business had become the exclusive preserve of the
super rich. |
