Maritime advocacy group kicks as Reps move to scrap Shippers Council

 

Maureen Aguta

 

A group of Nigerian maritime industry stakeholders, Maritime Advocacy Foundation (MAF), has condemned in very strong terms the reported move by the Federal House of Representatives to scrap the enabling law of the Nigerian Shippers Council and in its place enact a fresh law that would bring into being ‘The Nigerian Shipping and Port Economic Regulatory Agency’; an agency that does in any way has anything to do with the roles of the Shippers’ Council which is protection of the Nigeria shippers interests.

The group in a news conference in Lagos on Friday said that it rejects the bill and is ready to storm the National Assembly on Monday, May 27, 2024, the day the House Committee on Shipping Services is holding a Public Hearing on the bill at the Conference Hearing Room 034, to register its displeasure against the proposed bill.

The group of maritime stakeholders therefore called on the lawmakers to stop “undue disregard and negation of the Nigerian Shippers via a legislation”, saying rather than passing this anti- people bill which will end up protecting the economic interest of transnational corporations, they should pass the already existing bill at the National Assembly which aims to give the economic regulatory powers of Nigerian port industry to the Nigerian Shippers Council.

Fwdr Dr Eugene Nweke, Head of Publicity, Maritime Advocacy Foundation, explained that the role of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council as globally recognised, include trade, financial exchange and transport initiations and whose acts and activities booster global transport activities and sustains economy of nations.

Nweke said: “As a way of establishing a background to this subject, we wish to state clearly that, globally the shippers are referenced as trade, financial exchange and transport initiators whose acts and activities booster global transport activities and sustains economy of nations.

“Without sounding immodest, the shipper has been tagged as the proverbial hen that lays the golden eggs in transportation.

“Shippers are the reasons job creation thrives evenly across globe. The nomenclature known as import and export data are purely the making of the shippers.

“By global recognition, international conventions have been severally reviewed to cushion the transport intricacies between the ship owner (shipping lines) and cargo owner ( shippers). The established slogan of the World Trade Organisationis is to the effect that trade has become the instrument of promoting global peace not just economic activities. In this regards, the respect and interests of the shippers is paramount.

“It is on record that, without the shippers no freight markets and without freight markets no transport activities across modes.

Nweke further explained that “Shippers Council in other West and Central African countries involves in cargo sharing, which is not the case in our dear Country, rather our Shippers Council takes care of Shippers’ interests.

“The Decree of 1978 clearly focused on the protection of shippers interests in Nigeria. This decree today is represented as Nigerian Shippers Council Act (Cap. 133 LFN 2004).

“Ten years after, in further reactions of the government, it evolved a National Shipping Policy Decree of 1987, which focuses on the protection of ship owners interests in Nigeria,” he said, adding that maritime stakeholders then considered the two decrees as complimentary and supplementary to each other.

He noted, however, that in 1988, “the monopolists went shopping for a supplant of the Shippers Council Act, and a certain publication was sponsored and published in African Maritime Economist of October, 1988, where it canvassed that, if the Nigerian Shippers Council decree of 1978 was the first legislative reactions of the Nigeria Government to the code in Nigeria, then the National Shipping Policy Decree of 1987 has to be seen as a second reactions of government.” Invariably suggesting or stating in a subtle manner that, decree 1987 repeals decree 1978.

“Today, in 2024 (36 years after) the same armies of occupation (aka agents of liberal economies) are tacitly propagating for a repeal of the Nigerian Shippers Council and by extension expressing their long bitterness cum mix feelings against the Nigeria shippers, Nweke alleged.

He stated that it will be against the spirit of Renewed Hope mantra of the present administration to create a Marine and Blue Economy Ministry out of the Transport Ministry without a corresponding establishment to specifically protect the interest of the Nigerian shippers in the whole transport industry. According to him, the move to repeal the Nigerian Shippers Council Act (Cap. 133 LFN 2004) is a deliberate insult to the wisdom of our nation’s founding fathers.

He called on the Ministers of Transportation and Marine & Blue Economy to boldly save the interests of Nigerian shippers who had over the years sustained job creation in the country in addition to their contributions in revenue generation for budgetary objectives.