By Godfrey Bivbere

The Nigerian Shippers Council, NSC, yesterday faulted its exclusion from the planned review of the port concession exercise embarked upon years back.

The Executive Secretary of NSC, Hassan Bello, made the position of the Council known in Abuja at the on-going West and Central Africa sub-regional workshop and joint standing committee meeting organised by the Union of African Shippers Council, UASC in conjunction with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD.

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Bello noted that with Shippers Council being a representative of the shippers who are the users of the ports, it is imperative for the Council to be fully represented in the process leading to the review.

He explained that most of the problems plaguing the concession exercise today is because the process leading to the concession of the ports initially was not made open and the port users were not involved.

He also pointed out that the absence of a regulator from inception created the loopholes that was fully exploited by the concessionaires.

According to him, “The review of the port concession is on-going, the Shippers Council is not part of the review of the concession agreement for now.

“The Nigerian Shippers Council is a representative of so many things, you cannot have any meaningful discussion without the input of NSC.

“Am aware that the Federal Ministry of Transportation is looking at this because one has to take the issue of all port users into consideration.

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“That was the problem in the first instance when the negotiation for the port concession was going on, it was not made open. Even when it was completed, it took almost seven months for Nigerian Shippers Council to get a copy of the agreement.

“The process leading to the review should be made open. The enemies of open discussion will not succeed this time around because Shippers Council will insist that as port economic regulator and the representatives of shippers, it should be represented.

“We need to have everybody come together for the process to succeed,” he noted.