A group, Concerned Maritime Operators (CMO) has condemned the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) for what it labeled “illegal revocation of leases granted a number of our member’s companies to conduct jetty and barging operations along the stretch of waterways across the Oshodi Expressway from the main facilities of Tincan Island Port Complex, (TCICP) Apapa Lagos State.”
A statement signed by Barr. Oladapo Odunoye, Coordinator described the action of the NPA as “high handed and at best a travesty against justice because the various leases which are fully paid upfront had only gone negligible fraction of their respective tenures before revocation hammer hit them.
While noting that the operational license of the companies granting each of them their respective one year leases are still valid having commenced between January and March 2021, the statement said that “This arbitrary action of the NPA, saw the wanton destruction of their structures , equipment and other investments belonging to the licensees at the lease sites located between the TCIPC first and second gates by Port Novo Creek in a ruthless illegal mission enforced by joint taskforce of heavily armed military and paramilitary personnel mustered and deployed by the Authority.
It maintained that, “The efforts of the companies, individually and collectively alongside those of our other members have contributed immeasurably in finally ameliorating the hitherto intractable gridlock that haunted the Lagos port access roads by moving huge cargoes safer, cheaper and more conveniently via the waterways thereby contributing immensely in facilitating the Buhari administrations’s ease of doing business policy.
It declared that, “no less than six thousand persons employed directly or indirectly by the affected operators have been rendered redundant under the prevailing galloping inflation and insecurity sweeping across the nation.
It also said that the revocation has caused the operators huge losses in terms of revoked contracts with foreign investors, painting Nigeria before the international community as an unstable investment destination.
“It is baffling that under the administration of President Buhari that has done and continues to do so much in deploying stimulus packages to alleviate poverty through supportive policies including boosting local content and financial incentives to entrepreneurs, an institution of the federal government such as the NPA is engaging in antics that are antithetical to gainful legitimate business to throw persons into the already congested unemployment market,” the statement highlighted.
Picture: NPA Boss, Bello Koko