The Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mallam Omar Suleiman is a construction engineer and has worked with NPA for over a decade. In this interview with David Ogah and Roseline Okere, he bares his mind on the need for a deep seaport and the moves to restructure the agency for better performance. Excerpts.IT has been over six year now that Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) announced plans to restructure itself for enhanced performance. Six years has gone, we are yet to see any major restructuring of NPA. What is happening to that programme'One of the mandates for us when we were given the mantle of leadership of NPA late last year was to reposition the agency to a position where it will become the landlord. In every organisation, changes are very hard to make. People do not like changes. For us to meet up with President Goodluck Jonathan's transformation agenda, there is need to do restructuring. This is because, no matter the people and the machines that you have and no matter the amount of technology you have, you have to get the right human resources to be able to carry out major activities. Comprehensive management restructuring that will reflect the present realities, having concessioned terminal operations responsibilities to private operators, is very necessary. After looking at the people for this long, though it took me a very long time, we discovered that for NPA to move forward and meet up with the aspiration of the federal government of Nigeria, we need to restructure. We cannot continue to do the same thing all over again and expect a different result. We have to optimally utilise the authority's manpower with a view to achieving its set goals.There are fears that the restructuring may affect some workers after the initial downsizing from 12,000 to 3,000 workers. Can you allay the fears of the workers'We do not have plans to downsize. Believe me, with this new structure, after some years, we may employ more workers. What we are doing is taking up the responsibility as an agency to re-strategise for better performance. What we are doing is to put people at the right places to enable them take up the responsibilities they are suppose to do. I promise that we are going to get more hands. The restructuring will only involve the redeployment of personnel to appropriate departments and units and not the downsizing of the workforce as being erroneously interpreted. We have adequately trained manpower and what we are doing now is to deploy them to appropriate departments and units to ensure good operational results and efficiency in the system.How will this restructuring boost the productivity of the workers and contribute to the nation's GDP'It will affect the nation's economy positively, because some of the workers who have nothing to do now will be utilised properly. Some of the workers who have been trained to do a particular work and are found somewhere else would be taken to the right place. At the end, the moral of the workers will go up and this will enhance productivity. We started this mandateby trying to see thatwestructureproperlytheNPA staff because due to the concession, some of the activities of NPA, as before, were no longer in existent. We still have staff that are bearing designations that are not appropriate. Apart from restructuring thestaff,the next thingwe wanted to do was to make certain changes, certain movements in the authority to reflect the current status of monitoringand supervisory role of NPA. That is still ongoing and very soon we shall achieve this.After the concession, terminal operations and cargo handling were taken away from NPA, what is now left with NPA'We still have staff who are trained as cargo operators. What we did in the last six years is to re-train them. After the retraining, they have not been moved from where they were. Many of them are not putting what they learn to practice, they have not been moved from what they used to do. Some of them are still hanging around as traffic managers. So, what we are doing now is to move them to where they can be effectively utilised.Is it possible for us to have the revenue figure by NPA before concession and now'Yes, you will have it.The traffic of vehicles and cargos have all been directed to Lagos, the outer ports are still very less busy. What is NPA doing to decongest the Lagos ports'One of the issues is that customer determines where he or she wants to take the cargo to. It is not the NPA that will direct the cargo to any port in the country.Congestion at the nation's ports has been perennial. We are approaching the Christmas season again, what have you put on ground to avoid congestion this year'We have recently discussed with the cargo operators to make sure they extend their working hours. The terminal operators are already working 24 hours. Customs also will increase their working hours. As you rightly said, we have recently been experiencing container traffic coming to the ports. Fortunately, we have the cargo handling equipments.You have been to ports in other parts of the world, but coming to our port, we discovered that there is human traffic at the port, while in other countries they are highly automated. What can we do to reduce human traffic at the port in order to comply with ISPS Code'Thank you. I may not agree 100 per cent with you because I have about three terminals in Lagos and is hard for you to see human being moving about there. The same thing is applicable to Onne port. There are few that are still experiencing human traffic and most of these are terminals handling general cargos. This is because the trucks enter with their drivers and some assistants. Many of our ports are trying seriously to comply with ISPS code.The port concessioning, one of the reason behind it was the need for the development of a regional hub ports in Nigeria, up till now, we have not heard much the planned development of hub port in Nigeria.If you look at Nigeria very well, we are in a very strategic position in the West, South and Central Africa. At the moment, we do not have a deep seaport. You will have to get a vessel of 10,000 and above coming to your port, before you even begin to dream of having a hub port. The campaign we are doing seriously is to see that we develop the deep seaport. You are aware that we are already far advance in Lekki deep seaport. The real issue is infrastructure. But the other big challenge we are having in Nigerian ports, is the security challenges. Because of the security challenges in Nigerian ports, the freight and insurance to Nigeria attracts extra cost. For us to operate a deep seaport, the cost on containers coming to Nigeria have to be very, very low. Once we able to take care of our security and other challenges, we will be able to achieve the dream of having deep seaport.How do we handle the issue of insecurity in Nigerian ports, most especially rubbery and piracy'Believe me NIMASA is doing a lot about it. They have even gone ahead to get some arrangement with private people to tackle the problem.Some concessioners are bringing in more investment into the port system and some are not. Government said it would renew concession arrangement with the private sector. What are you doing about the people that are not performing'The government has set up a panel and the Senate Committee is also doing something about it. We are just waiting for the result. As you said, a lot of them have done a lot and lots of them have not done enough. Government is definitely going to do something about it. We are going to look at what the law says and we are going to follow the law.We have some new ports coming up and you have been an advocate of development of ports. With these two new ports, do you see any need for more new ports in Nigeria'It is one after the other, the Olokanla Ports is going to be specifically for oil and gas. So, it is a specialized port. The Lekki Port is going to be for container terminals and general cargo. We hope to get one in the east for all sorts of services.Would you say that the Nigeria ports are contributing to development of this country. And in what ways'Yes, we are still contributing to the development of this country. There is no way we can discuss the economy of this country, without the ports. This is because we are providing logistics support to all the cargos that comes into the country and the manufacturers. Lagos port is handling a lot of traffic in terms of cargos. We are already, contributing to the country's economic development. With the proper development of the ports, it will be able to add substantially to the revenue generation of the Federal Government. But, we need to do some things right. We cannot continue to do the same thing, the same way and expect different result.What are those things that are needed to be done right'We are doing maintenance of infrastructure, we are dredging to enable easy movement of vessel, we are expanding the channels and we are also trying to build new ports.I am sure you are aware of a deep seaport being built in Togo, do you not see that as a threat to the Nigerian ports'The port is being financed by World Bank. It is a threat, yet it is not a threat. It is a threat if we are not able to come up and build deep seaport. But, once we are able to build a deep seaport, the one in Togo will not be a threat. Remember that Nigeria is more than half of the population in West Africa. If we do not do something about it, all the shipment coming to Nigeria will go to Togo. But, if we are able to construct deep seaports, all cargos will come to Nigeria.NPA being the regulator and landlord has not been able to handle much regulation since the port terminals were concessioned, what is happening'The high cost of shipment in Nigeria has to do with what happened at the terminals. Because of the security situation in Nigeria, the cost of shipment to Nigeria is higher than other parts of West Africa countries. After that, we have about 13 agencies at the port. What we submitted to the government is that we need four. Federal Government is working to ensure security at the port.Goods that are supposed to be shipped to Nigeria are being diverted to Republic of Benin. Is NPA not worried about the trend'We are very much concern about what is going on. We are not relenting in making shipment to Nigeria exciting even if it has to do with the cost of shipment. One of the reasons why some shipment are diverted to other neigbouring countries is because such goods are prohibited in Nigeria. What the importers of those goods does is to ship the cargo to neighbouring countries and later smuggle them into Nigeria.The concessioners have accused NPA of failing in its contractual obligations by not providing the right common user facilities. What is NPA doing about it'I will say the truth, NPA still have a lot of issues with the concessioners. You see anything that involves cost, it takes a long time to settle. And we are working on that. The issue of common access, we have made tremendous efforts from January till now because apart from one major road, which is 6 km, which is already with the federal executive council, we have awarded four access road within and to the port. If you go to Tin Can Island and Apapa, some of the projects have been concluded. The other issues are some legal issues that we are working with the National House of Assembly and all the people concern.Your predecessor came up with 25 years development plan for Nigeria ports. Are you still working on that initiative'There is need for us to plan properly. We are not disputing that. It is still with the Federal Executive council and we are pleading with them to hasten action on it, because it will help us to prepare for the next two years and help us advice investors where to put certain things, so that it will be very, very viable to customers.Right now we do not have direct foreign investment coming into the port sector. What measures do you think can be put in place to attract investments into Nigerian ports'I will not agree with that because all the investment in the port sector is direct foreign investment. There are a lot of foreign investors in Nigeria and more foreign investors are willing to come and invest in Nigeria.If you look at the terminal today, some areas have been tampered with. Some of the agreements do not cover container operations, but today, those companies are handling containers and some other ones are also coming up with container operations, which negates the actual agreement, as a landlord, what is NPA doing about it'When NPA was concessioned, there was a special type of agreement. A look at the agreement properly, you will see that they were not excluded from container handling.The ports today, are industrialised. This is not what is applicable in civilized world. What is the problem with Nigerian ports'It is only in Apapa that you can find industries. That is Dangote cement. Industries came into the ports about twenty years ago. When the cargos where not coming. I quite agree that the industries springing forth in our ports is not an ideal thing. We have moved the Dangote cement already. It is step by step to make the ports what they should be. At the end of the day, we will have a free port where cargos can be handled without problems. That is why we are loosing some revenue we are suppose to get.You have been here for some time now, what would you consider as your challenges'Our challenges here are still as they were before. There is need for a change. But people do not want to change. Our second challenge is to see that the deep seaport comes forth so that the Nigerian ports will be able to attract direct foreign investment. This is because for us to attract foreign investors, we need to create all the comfort they may need. Another challenge is infrastructure maintenance. We awarded all the access roads. In a very short time, we will be able to meet up with that. We are also looking at the security within the ports in the country.Do you think our ports have the capacity to cope with likely upsurge of importation in the near future'Yes, we will be able to do that. This is why we are thinking ahead. Very soon when the railway system starts working, we will be able to connect cargo to other parts of the country without delay.
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