Business
Consultant Decries Lack Of Transport Policy
A transport Consultant, Mr Alban Igwe, has decried the lack of a transport policy to guide developments in the sector.
Igwe, was guest speaker at the 5th Anniversary/Award ceremony of Transquest Media Concept, Publishers of Tranquest Magazine, held in Lagos on Saturday.
Presenting a paper on the theme: “Developing Nigeria’s Transport Sector through Public Private Partnership”, he said that the absence of a transport policy would make it difficult for the maritime sector to operate a sustainable PPP.
“Nigeria has no transport policy to guide developments without which there can be no PPP; we need to go back to the drawing board, and ask ourselves if it is a good idea to start PPP; is there any guarantee of sustainability?”
Igwe, who is also the Director, Education and Research of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN), said that the major goal of the sector in Nigeria should be to develop a responsive and safe transport system for the public.
He also decried the lack of professionalism in the transport industry, adding that the PPP should actually be four P’s including Professionalism.
“PPP may be desirable as an efficient transport paradigm but there is a missing P—Public Professional Private Partnership. This will ensure sustainability.
“Do we have transport policy analysts? do we have transport sector professionals being used in this sector? how long will we pay money to foreigners to take away, yet we say that we are doing PPP?” Igwe asked.
He urged the government to focus on building human capital to fast track the development of the transport sector.
The director said that a transport master plan was necessary for effective and efficient integrated system.
Also speaking, the General Manager, Nigerian Ports Authority, Mr Michael Ajayi, urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to prevail on banks to begin 24-hour banking.
He said this would ensure the success of the 24-hour payment for goods at the Lagos Ports.
In his remark, Mr Bamidele Akande, the Area controller of the Ogun Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), said that the service was prepared to deal with any unscrupulous importer who would want to compromise the integrity of the ports.
Akande said that the service had trained and retrained officers and fine-tuned their operations at the ports and had sufficient capacity to deal with all unwholesome elements.
Our correspondent reports that some individuals who received awards at the ceremony included the Director-General of NIMASA, Mr Patrick Akpobolokemi; the Managing Director of NPA, Engr. Omar Suleiman, and the Director-General, Nigeria Institute of Transport Technology, Alhaji Aminu Yusuf.
Others are the Rector of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) and Mr Joshua Okpo, General Manager, Western Ports of the NPA, Malam Bulangu, among others.