Debt: Agbaje Calls For Withdrawal Of Lease Agreement From Apapa, Tincan Ports Concessionaires

Jimi Agbaje, a pharmacist and former gubernatorial candidate of Lagos State, has called for the withdrawal of concession agreements from concessionaires who have failed to remit their fees to the Federal government.

Agbaje said the defaulting concessionaires are among the obstacles hindering the optimal performance of both the Apapa and Tincan Island ports in Lagos.

The politician believes the new Marine and Blue Economy may fail to achieve its full potential if the administration fails to “Look at the concessions.”

In 2006, the Nigerian government in 2006 entered a concession/ lease agreement with 26 companies.

According to reports, some of the concessionaires are still owing their concession fees since 2006 up till date.

An audit query by the Office of the Auditor General for the Federation presented to the House of Representatives in August last year, showed 18 of the terminal operators allegedly failed to remit $753m and N1.61bn to the FG between 2006 to 2019.

Their total indebtedness was $852.094m and N1.9bn ($2.5m at N750/$).

Agbaje said, “The ports business is very competitive. If you look at rankings for ports, there is no Nigerian ports in Africa that are the first ten. So, when you are ranking the first ten ports in Africa, Africa’s largest economy does not even rank.

“Basically, you assess the efficiency of ports basically on two factors. Access of ships to your ports and also how you handle the movements from and to the ports.

“The Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) has six ports- the Apapa complex and Tincan; four in the Niger Delta and you discover that those four are not doing much.

“Lagos is congested. It is not efficient because it is not doing right. The way the Apapa ports were concessioned, I think, was faulty.

“So, you have a storage problem and the human capacity in terms of logistics, and also look at the equipment. Hitting the ground running by the Minister is looking at the ports. Look at Apapa, Tincan Island, and say what is the problem. Why is it taking a long turnaround time? Look at how to get the ships to come in. Look at the concession.”

Tinubu appointed Adegboyega Oyetola as Minister to oversee the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy in order to improve the country’s revenues.

Agbaje insisted that the only way ports will work in Lagos is for the administration to improve their access from the sea and eliminate gridlock.

He said it would be easy to reactivate the Port Harcourt, Warri, Onne, and Calabar ports if the issues surrounding Apapa and Tincan ports were addressed.