Shippers' Council Pushes for Full Automation of Port Operations, to Eliminate Dollar Payments at Seaports

Samuel Mobolaji

The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has planned to put an end to the collection of shipping charges and other charges in foreign currency especially United States dollar in the nation’s seaports by service providers.

It is worthy of note that clearing agents and operators of Inland Dryports have raised the alarm of some shipping companies charging in foreign currency especially on export cargoes

Speaking on this development, the Executive Secretary, Barr. Pius Akutah said, to reduce pressure on the naira, dollarised payment at the seaport must stop.

According to him, “this is an issue we can take up with the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola and Mr President on how we can deal with the issue to ease the pressure on the naira.

“For instance, the issue of dollarised payment of some of the services rendered in the sector, we are looking into that and our own concern is that it’s putting pressure on the naira. Also, the fact that President Bola Tinubu has taken initiative to sell crude oil to Nigerian refineries in naira clearly showed that the president understands how the economy is moving and he’s addressing issues putting pressure on the dollar.

“This is an issue we can take up with the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola and Mr President on how we can deal with the issue to ease the pressure on the Nara.”

The council boss also stated that, all round automation that will include public and private sectors are needed to drive efficiency at the nation’s seaports.

Akutah who said manual port operations will slowdown port processes and reduce efficiency, said automation will increase trade volumes and increase turnaround time for vessels at the seaports.

“We are at the forefront of driving port automation, and we believe that no matter what we do, if we do not automate our system that is, we still allow physical contacts, it will further slowdown port processes and we won’t achieve efficiency that we are looking for in other to drive trade volume and turnaround time of cargoes at the seaports.

“These are the things affecting trade facilitation. We need to automate our system, and automation is not a question of private sectors alone but public sector also. Public sector must also automate their system and at Shippers Council, we have done lot of automation and more still going on. All round automation is needed to drive an all-round efficiency,” he stated.

The Shippers’ Council boss also informed the visitors that the council is in discussion with concessionaires of Inland Dryports (IDPs), in the country on completion and functionality.

According to him, the IDPs are trade facilitation tools that will take care of many issues bothering Shippers in the country and will bring shipping closer to the hinterland.

“One of the mandates we have is to implement the establishment of the Inland Dryport and other critical infrastructure to support trade in Nigerian. We have been doing that and few months ago, we commissioned the inland Dryport, we are also working on other inland dryport as well and they will be commissioned soon.

“The governor of Borno State was here with us to discuss the way forward for the Maiduguri inland Dryport and we are committed to ensuring that the inland Dryport comes up next month.

“That’s a trade facilitation tools that will take care of many issues bothering Shippers’ in the country and our commitment is to bring shipping facilities closer and encourage shippers to use the facilities.

“Last week, we are in Kaduna and Kano, and we took a tour of the Inland Dryports and all of these are avenues to partner with shippers, shipping communities together with the service providers who are managing the critical infrastructure to see how issues that are disturbing them can be tackled.

“In the cause of our stakeholders’ engagement in Kano, some issue came up and the issues will impact trade, and we have taken them as challenges that will be dealt with as quickly as possible,” he stated.