An industry watcher, Bernard Ndubisi has urged the management of Integrated Logistics Limited (INTELS) to review its decision on service delivery on the basis of dollar-payment or dollar-equivalent, stressing the need to support President Muhammadu Buhari’s efforts towards strengthening the Naira.
Mr. Ndubisi made the appeal in Lagos, even as some shippers and stakeholders expressed disgust that Government had, so far, failed to lift a finger in respect of the Intels “dollarization” policy.
Ndubisi stated that while it may be true that Intels was good in terms of service delivery, the policy of collecting dollars or dollar-equivalent for services rendered had unduly raised charges to the roof-top, often leaving shippers dry.
“The task of nation-building is a collective one. If the authorities are working towards strengthening the Naira, then everyone, Intels should join too.
“If the IMF is pressurising for further devaluation of the Naira, and the Intels management is pursuing a dollarization policy, then how can Mr. President’s efforts towards strengthening the Naira gain currency?”, he asked, appealing to other organizations if any, also implementing such policies in the country, to reconsider their position.
Ndubisi however stressed the need to appeal to Intels, acknowledging that with an APC government in power, and with the calibres of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as back-benchers, the wellbeing of the giant terminal managers is highly and properly secured.
A statement published on Monday November 24, 2014 on page 4 of Ships &Ports Daily posited Atiku as describing Intels as his “most successful business” venture.
“Of all the businesses into which I would venture, the most successful and most lucrative would be a small oil services company I established with an Italian business man in the early 1980s. I met Gabriel Volpi when he was working at Apapa Ports in 1982. The Genoa, Italy-born Volpi was a Director in MED Africa, a shipping company”, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar had disclosed while campaigning for APC presidential ticket; noting that “Volpi suggested we go into oil and gas logistics”.
Today, Intels perhaps on account of a peerless foresight , has emerged a towering port concessionaire, who provides logistics supports for oil and gas-related cargo at Onne, Warri and Calabar ports,
In the meantime, importers and their agents have described Intels charges as being on the very high side, blaming the situation on what they perceived as consistent supports from the environment.
“Previous governments have so much pampered them that they have turned them into a huge monopolistic octopus that has attained the image of a cult hero among its peers’’ one operator observed, recalling the pronouncement of former president Goodluck Jonathan at the twilight of his administration which reinforced the view.
Few weeks to his exit, the erstwhile president had declared that all oil and gas –related cargo should be handled at oil and gas designated terminals which are incidentally the haven of intels in Onne, Warri and Calabar ports.
The pronouncement generated a furore among importers and their agents who described the call by the former president as creating intels into a monopolistic giant.
Though, other terminal operators kicked against the directive which they said was capable of running them out of business, it was only the Lagos Deep Off-shore Logistics (LADOL) that made any appreciable impact.
‘’We all signed a concession agreement with government and it would be unfair and unkind to create a monopoly out of one of us’’, a member of Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN), had explained.
Speaking in the same vein, Prince Olayiwola Shittu, the National President of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) had during the controversial directive, threatened that his members would oppose the directive by boycotting the facilities of the port concessionaires.
Prince Shittu had declared that freight forwarders would rather than obey the presidential order, divert their oil and gas cargo to the neigbouring port from where they would be brought to the country.
The ANLCA boss, who decried the government’s moves for granting such monopoly, said that he would instruct his members and principals who handle oil and gas cargoes to henceforth direct their vessels to boycott all Intels’-controlled seaports, unless the directive was reversed.
A firm believer of healthy competition, Prince Shittu described the action of government as ‘’irresponsible’’, saying that “what they are doing is creating a monopoly that is anti-people, and not in the interest of the economy”.
“Everybody should have a choice of where they want to take their cargoes to.
The government concessioned the ports, all of them (concessionaires) signed the same documents. Why do you have to force people to take their cargo to Intels…so that they can charge them in dollars, and not only that, their charges are 300 times more than regular charges in other ports”.
“We have started our campaign also to call for the boycott of all Intels’ ports facilities. In addition, we are prepared to take our oil and gas goods through Cotonou. If that discrimination is going to happen, then we go through the border.
“It is very unfortunate because Intels have been a problem and it is like a country, a sovereign of its own. That is because the promoters are holding the jugular of the government and Nigerians. It is very unfortunate”.
From all indications, it is like importers and their agents are bent on making good their threats.
A visit to Seme borders showed that the importers have started to divert their oil and gas related cargo to the neigbouring ports of Cotonou from where they now bring it to the country through the border.
For those who do not want to divert their own cargo, they now use other terminals where they said their charges are reasonable and services more courteous.
Meanwhile, an unknown advocacy group which called itself Nigerians United Against Theft in the Maritime Sector, in a sponsored campaign, has urged the government to halt the mass exodus of importers from intels facilities in a bid to save the multi-billion dollars investments of the company which they said are now being threatened.
According to the Chairman of the group, Dr Jonas Bankole, several millions of dollars had been lost in recent weeks following the impunity with which some terminal operators engaged in what he described as inappropriate discharge of cargoes.
The group claimed that the Federal Government is losing $4.4 dollars per tonne of oil and gas cargoes not discharged at the appropriate and designated terminals, another self confessed maritime expert, Kolawole Olatunbosun claim.
However, the protesting importers have vowed to stick to their guns and call the bluff of the service provider in its attempt to lure them back to their terminals.
‘’No amount of blackmail or propaganda can make us go back to intels’ facilities” the importers posited further.