The Federal Ministry of Transportation (FMOT), will in collaboration with the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) organise an awareness programme aimed at enlightening port industry stakeholders on the functions of the council as economic regulator.
The programme, which will be chaired by Magdalene Ajani, the permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Transportation, is scheduled to hold Friday, July 22, 2022, in Lagos.
Themed ‘Port Economic Regulator – NSC in Focus,’ the programme is aimed at enlightening stakeholders on the mandate of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council as Port Economic Regulator.
A paper titled ‘Promoting Competitiveness and Compliance in Nigerian Maritime Industry,’ will be presented by Bongo Adi, a professor of economist.
Regulated service providers, CEOS of regulatory agencies, maritime experts, lawyers, organised private sector and shippers, Nigeria Customs Service and other stakeholders are expected to attend the programme.
Read also: Shippers Council, ICPC vow to enforce implementation of Port manual to boost operation
Recall that the Federal Government’s Port Reform programme of 2006 transferred the cargo handling aspect of the port to private investors leaving the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) as the landlord and technical regulator for the ports without a port economic regulator.
This resulted to several irregularities including the imposition of different tariff headings by terminal operators and shipping lines/agents, lack of holding bays for containers, shortage of modern cargo handling equipment among others in the shipping sector.
In-order to address the anomalies, on February 14, 2014, the Federal Government pronounced Nigerian Shippers’ Council as interim port regulator which was made substantial in 2015.
As the port economic regulator, NSC was saddled with the responsibility to institute effective regulation at ports, working with other government agencies
The Council has over the years also embarked on various initiatives to bring sanity to the ports.
