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Steve Agbota
Controversy has trailed the concessioning agreement with terminal operators by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) over the exclusion of the port economic regulator, the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) from the exercise.
Speaking with Daily Sun in his office in Lagos, the Executive Secretary of the Council, Hassan Bello, said the review of the agreement without the input of the Council will be counter productive to the economy.
According to him, it was a paradox that a government agency created to regulate the activities of terminal operators is not in the know of the contractual agreement operators had with government. He therefore described the act as arbitrary, inexplicable and unjustified.
Bello said that the concession agreement is not secret and does not belong to any agency, adding that the port economic regulator must be mentioned in the agreement.
He added: “It baffles me that issues like review of port concession should continue without consulting the economic regulator (Shippers’ Council). But that is how things happen and we have protested to the Ministry of Transportation to say whatever happened, the Council has never been involved and the worse we got was to observe when we are critical stakeholders.
“We are not happy on the way we were excluded in critical decisions like port concessioning and some others. I don’t know anything about the concession agreement, the Nigerian Shippers’ Council has been called observers when we are the port economic regulator.
