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By Akeem Atoyebi
The Nigerian Ports Authority stated that it has necessary approvals for an upward review of its tariffs by 15 per cent, noting that this was last reviewed in 1993.
It said the development was inevitable, and occasioned by the imperative of bringing Nigerian ports up to speed with its peers in terms of infrastructure and equipment to ensure competitiveness at the ports.
But already operators at the ports have frowned at the latest development, saying the implementation of the 15 per cent ports tariff hike would automatically engender a higher cost of doing business nationwide, as the cost of commodities would rise.
The Managing Director of NPA, Dr Abubakar Dantsoho, made this known on Thursday in Lagos during a stakeholders’ engagement for the approved 15 per cent NPA tariff increment.
The NPA boss stressed that globally, port authorities rely on revenue from operations to stay afloat and be alive to their responsibilities.
Dantsoho stated that the global index of port rating and competitiveness which the international trade community depends on for its choice of countries to do business with, derives its data from how well the aforementioned responsibilities are addressed.
He noted that coming at this period of global economic upheaval and scramble for markets, “this belated tariff review borne out of necessity constitutes a critical success factor in Nigeria’s quest to win back cargo handling business and its accompanying benefits including job opportunities it had lost to its maritime neighbours.”
Dantsoho stated that the high incidence of unreceipted costs resulting from unduly high human interface, bureaucratic bottlenecks, and functional overlaps arising from the absence of a Port Community System and its corollary, the National Single Window, is responsible for this contrived falsehood.
“Although long overdue, a quick win benefit of the NPA’s tariff review for stakeholders is the immediate boost it gives to the authority to fast track the commencement of actual works on its concluded port reconstruction and modernisation plans,” he said.
He said that the tariff review provides the necessary guarantees to fund the acquisition and urgent deployment of the information communications technology backbone of the PCS which is the precursor to the implementation of the NSW.
The NPA boss added that the move would also increase revenue generation arising from the review buoys the authority’s capacity for critical maintenance works to open up the eastern ports for increased vessel and cargo traffic such as the reconstruction of collapsed Escravos breakwaters and challenged aspects of Rivers, Onne and Calabar ports.
In his reaction to the development, the Head of the Department of Shipping and Terminals at the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders, Mr Ukochukwu Nnadi, noted that the 15 per cent hike in ports tariff would ignite a rise in the cost of doing business nationwide.
“Definitely it will add to the cost of doing business because every kobo added to doing any particular thing, no matter what the thing is, will be passed to the customers, and the customers in this case are the stakeholders.
“As the NPA wants to add cost, even if it’s a kobo to their changes to the operators, it will be passed to customers sooner or later; it is as easy as that. So it is going to add to the cost of doing business,” he said.
