NPA Needs Additional 1000 Employees to Cover Unmanned Jetties – Bodunde, Senior Staff President
Akinola Bodunde, President of Senior Staff Association of Statutory Government Owned Companies (SSAGOC) Maritime Branch told Ismail Aniemu that the federal government stands to gain more from it’s blue economy initiatives with additional manpower for the Nigerian Ports Authority
Bodunde also spoke on how best to manage the port concession agreement,which is due for renewal while calling for increased wages in the face of harsh economic realities
Excerpt
In your view, what has been achieved under the ministry of marine and blue economy, since it was created?
Generally, it’s just a change of name. All the activities remain the same. But if you want to compare with the international standard, what they have is marine and blue economy.Even in Europe or anywhere you go, that’s what we are trying to do.
The area is large enough and they have more responsibility. Focusing on the marine and blue economy alone, is what some countries are depending on to generate their own revenue. We have countries that depend on ports alone . Singapore majorly depends on port and that’s where they get their money.
When we had a Minister for transportation,the emphasis of the former minister was on railway. He concentrated on the railway and even abandoned the port system itself.
But now, we have the ports under a minister. We have about three or five or six parastatals in that area.We have NIMASA, NPA, NIWA Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron.I think the focus is direct and I hope that we should be able to perform better and attend to our needs often than before.
We have started seeing the changes. If more force is pushed into it, we will be better off in the new Marine and Blue Economy. There is greater hope for improvement
At the pace we are going, from your personal projection, when do you think we can attain where Singapore is now?
We can get there if we can change some of our policies. The major problem we are having in Nigeria is the policy somersault . The ports are supposed to be booming, but when we look at the issue of exchange rates, it’s high.
People who are importing can no longer import like that. If we look at customs duties as well, people are not bringing cars. A 2005 corolla custom duty is between N3 million and N3.5 million. By the time it is purchased, it is bought maybe in dollars, equivalent to N2 million .Add it together. Outside, the small corolla of 2005 is about N6.5 million.
All these things are affecting export. If you go to PTML that deals with cars majorly, sometimes a vessel that is supposed to take about 10,000 vehicles, will come with about 3,000 or 2,500 vehicles because of the duties and the exchange rate.
If we look at the people taking container, you will see some people gathering materials together in Europe to get a 40-footer. That is groupage import and it is what people are doing, because before, people can just pick up 20-footer container, load their goods and bring in. But because of the money, people are no longer importing.
What you are saying is that Nigerian port seems underutilized?
Of course, because we see some people going to Cotonou as well.But we have the population. Nigeria is a huge marketplace.
To bring the solution to the table, what should the government do to maximize potentials of our ports?
The government should look at all of these policies.The duties, as far as we are concerned, is too high and that’s because we are not producing cars in Nigeria. If we are not producing cars, how many people can afford to buy it? Because a brand new vehicle, will go for N15 million. Can an average Nigerian or a civil servant buy a brand new car of N15 million?
We don’t even have good security in order to go to a bank safely.If the government fixes these things, we can be talking about locally made vehicles. But as far as we don’t have that facility on ground, people still believe in tokunbo and that’s why people should be encouraged to do it by reducing duties to allow people to buy cars.
People are no longer buying cars because of the price.They buy Nigerian-used cars because nobody is sincere. It is when we have problems with the cars that we sell, mostly Nigerians. That’s why the tokunbo is still better than any other thing you can think of. The government should look at the exchange rate and look at the customs duties. It’s too high.It is driving a lot of people away from bringing cars to Nigeria.
Has the expectations from port concession been achieved almost two decades after?
I will tell you nothing but the truth. We were all deceived because at that time, they told us that it will bring more employment and we in NPA were reduced by about 7,000 workforce. But if you look at all the terminal together and calculate their staff strength, I don’t think they are up to 2,000. It increased unemployment. And they are still reducing.
Can we now say the terminal operator has increased employment? No. And if you look at infrastructure, all of them have in their concession agreement ,what and what to do in the port development. How many of them have even added one value or two to their current terminal? Only a few. Automatically, what they were expecting or all of us are expecting, concerning the level we are supposed to get to, I can tell you categorically that we have not achieved it.
Some of their terminals are due for renewal. I think government should look into it this time around. Anybody that has not performed, should not have his terminal renewed because some of them have failed woefully.
We give it to PTML , they built it themselves. Lekki Port is excellent, it is privately owned and built. ENL has added a little value.Sifax Group has also added a little value .But when you are looking at Josepdam ,I don’t think what they have done well. Port Concession did not actualise all the promises made to us . I rate the success achieved as 30 over 100
Government had announced a policy of 50% revenue reduction from parastatals in the maritime industry, including NPA. How do you think this is affecting operation?
I would say no.When that policy was announced in January 2024, we started making noise at the union level. The senior staff, and the maritime workers union, had a press conference together rejecting that particular policy because in NPA, we make money, but we need to utilise money to make money.
If our infrastructure is not okay, will any ship come in? No. We are not like the organizations that are just making money, and are not utilising the money. The customs are making money from the port because the port is okay.
Sometimes they announce that they are making trillions. Generally, all the ports are run on generators, we must dredge the port. We have third-party agreements with some other groups that work in the port.Looking at the generation, not every money that comes to NPA belongs to NPA. If it is reduced to 50%, ,how can NPA survive with 50%?
We are not even talking about capital projects and overhead cost of every employee working. Dredging alone is capital-intensive, it’s in dollars.Tincan Island Port’s quay apron has collapsed and to put it back requires millions.
Presently in Warri, the breakwater has already collapsed, and that’s why throughout last year, there was a problem of ships coming to Warri .
The government has just approved to dredge, and they are dredging. But that dredging is a temporary measure until the breakwater is rebuilt, and to rebuild the breakwater now, presently with the current exchange rate, I don’t think NPA can afford that.
There was a lot of argument and exchange of letter between the management and the government. Towards the end of last year, they reconsidered their position of 50-50 to about 30-70 now.
We are waiting for the implementation.Throughout last year, because of that policy, we really suffered. We couldn’t meet our target because we use money to generate money. We are not like some other government agencies that collects revenue without structures to invest on or to maintain.
It’s not only NPA that generates money from the port. Other organizations generate money because of the commitment of NPA on the port development. It’s not a good policy.Thank God the government is addressing it. We hope the implementation starts as soon as possible.
Port automation has been one burning issue that the industry discussed some time ago, and it went off the radar. Do you think if Nigerian ports go fully automated, jobs are secured?
Recently, the Inland revenue chairman, was in Ikeja for the Single Window event and I was there.All these policies saumersaulting is another thing that is affecting us in Nigeria.
When we have a policy, we abandon it and pick up another one. I believe the Single Window is the current one whereby everyone will sit in one place. Immediately you enter, you prepare your paper and go without being stopped by anyone. Let’s have one way of doing our job, if they can do it. But on the issue of job, I don’t know yet. They are just pushing it to us.
We will look at it. If it will affect our job, we will shout. There is no policy that you want to go in automation and the number of people to be done will not be reduced.
It’s just like bank. When we had more people doing tally in the bank, but now, with computer, you can take 200 people within one hour. Everything is now computerized.
Let’s see how it goes. In the modern day, people are changing and we must change along with time.We will take a look at it.If it will affect us, we can address the management, and suggest how to do it. Any policy can be domesticated. It’s not rocket science.We have to work for our members, to secure their job, and we will continue to do that.
Could you please set an immediate, medium, and long term agenda for the MD NPA?
The MD is not a stranger in the maritime industry. He grew up from the system.He served in NPA before he was employed as an officer and he has put in more than 30 years. Automatically, he knows the system. Since he came in, we have met him many times for advice, and he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing. He.’s doing well.
We need development. We need people who will put all the terminals on their toes ,because some people believe when you are connected to government or to a head, nothing will happen.
This wrong notion of “We will do our job the way we want to do it. Nobody can challenge us” should not be allowed. That has been the system.For somebody like him, who knows the system, he should be able to help us in this direction, because we are losing revenue.
There are areas we need to cover, that we are not covering because of the number of people we have. NPA is just a little above 3,000 workforce and we have more than 1,000 jetties in Nigeria. Even in Lagos area, at Mile 2 axis to Badagry, we have more than 60 jetties unmanned because we don’t have workforce.
If we even post 3 each to all these terminals or jetties, they will record issues going on. Government is looking for revenue but we have areas that we have not covered that we need to cover. We have discussed with the new MD and I think they are working on it.
If it is for us to employ and put people there, it will be the best for us, because we are losing revenue.When you go to Ijegun terminal on Saturday, you will see live operation.I have challenged everybody to visit the place. Or when you pass Ikorodu to Epe, there is one place we call Itoki. Customs are there and they are discharging containers there. NPA is not there and we have a lot of jetties like that. Those are the areas we want the MD of NPA to look into.They should post and employ people there.They might not be senior officers.They might be junior officers. Let them take record of what is happening there and it will be better for the government, NPA and Nigeria.
Give us an overview of your Union’s activities since you assumed.How have you impacted on your members? Tell us your agenda for 2025.
We came in in 2023. We are a year and some months old now.We inherited a lot of issues when we came in. Last year, we were able to solve some of them .
The issue of promotion, bonus, training and so on.Our people are happy about that. In this 2025, we believe that we still need more because looking at the exchange rates, we are considering the power of purchase.It’s very high. Even the salary can no longer take anybody home.
It can’t take us to bus stops.The government increased salary last year. But unfortunately, the government is not looking at the direction of we that are generating the money, the salary and wages commission.
We need to be part of that increase. We are already shouting because they said the N70,000 is for core civil servants, but we are all workers.
You mean it did not impact on anybody?
Yes. The parastatals also and generally, we are not being considered.That’s why we are all shouting. Injury to one is injury to all. We need to work on our salary to make people happy.
That one will make them more committed to the job. Things are hard outside no matter what you are collecting.By the time you pay your children’s school fees, buy foodstuff and even maintain yourself, the man working, you don’t have much left.
A worker of NPA pays an average of N5,000 on transport per day. We have not added feeding.By the time you add feeding to it is more. We are only trying to manage ourselves.
If you really want to eat in the morning and afternoon before you go home, nobody will spend less than N10,000.If you are spending N10,000 , in a week, that is N50,000 .In a month, that is N200,000 on transport and feeding.
We are not talking about taking care of your own family at home again. By the time you add payment of your children’s school fees and house rent, it’s not easy. The issue of taking care of workers is our priority in 2025 and we must get there. Something better must be done to our workers and that is what they want us to do. We will not disappoint them in doing that.
