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The National Vice President, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Prince Kayode Farinto, has called on the Federal Government to consider creating a ministry for the maritime sector, just as the avaition sector was moved out of the Ministry of Transportation.
Farinto who stated this yesterday while addressing newsmen in Lagos, said the creation of the Maritime Ministry will open up more opportunities to generate more revenue, create employment opportunities and help to solve most of the challenges facing the industry.
He said there are some departments in the Ministry of Transportation that are idle and redundant, adding that if the Maritime Ministry is created, some of these departments can brought out to function under the Maritime Ministry. He said it was high time government stopped lumping maritime industry from the Ministry of Transportation, saying that if it creates Maritime Ministry, African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) can be a implemented under the ministry.
“If you don’t create the ministry, we will not be able to monitor all the things that the government is doing. We have a Minister of Transport who does not know anything more than the railway sector. Ask the Minister of Transport, how ready are we on the implementation of AFCFTA, he will be talking what you cannot understand. And n i can never blame him.
“Transport sector is very large and wide. Look at the way we tactically removed aviation from transportation. It is high time, government created a Maritime Ministry so that we can harness all the potential in the industry because we have many areas that have not been harnessed, which can generate more revenue to government,” he added.
He said there are a lot of values that the creation of the Maritime Ministry will bring to the nation, adding that the waters lying fallow across the country, there are too many money there unharnessed.
He said the Ministry of Transportation is very big, which is why they cannot oversee all the departments under it, saying that creating Maritime Ministry will reduce cost, create employment and generate more revenue and bring up innovation in the industry.
He said government should take maritime sector serious by fixing all the dilapidated infrastructure in the industry, lamenting that it was unfortunately, the Ministry of Works handling the port access roads was not in synergy with other ministries.
According to him, 75 per cent of the road is completed, while port users are still suffering from the menance created by gridlock around the port access roads.
“We have a situation now where people bring bricklocks at night, they remove it to extort the transporters and freight forwarders. As I am talking to you now, to get a container from Belgium, cannot be €2000 but to load a consignment from the port to Ikeja now, is not less than N1.5 million.
