President, National Association of Stevedoring Company, Mr Bolaji Sunmola, has called on the Federal Government to ensure proper regulation of ports’ operations in the country in order to address the ‘ambiguity’ hindering their smooth operations.

Sunmola who  made the call at a forum recently in Abuja, noted that there were a lot of loopholes in the operations of the nation’s ports and called for urgent measures by the Federal government to tackle the problems.

He said that with proper legislation, problems such as encroachment of ports’ operations by some terminal operators would be addressed.

“We need a proper government clear cut regulations to say that this particular kind of service is scheduled under this category so that there will not be any ambiguity in terms of who is doing what and who is not.’’

Sunmola, who described stevedore as master in cargo handling, attributed the problem between them and terminal operators on port concession undertaken by the Federal Government five years ago.

He suggested that in order to ensure proper management of port activities, cargo handling should be rested in the hands of stevedore, who he described as ‘’professional’’.

“Prior to port concessioning to the parent organisation, a decision by the federal government to regularise that part of industry, like the days of port decongestion which cannot be done without our input, for concessioning too we are not complaining.’’

“But then there are some loopholes which have not been completely locked by the government, this is what we are still yearning that government should do for us, there is nowhere in any country where the issue of cargo handling is left into the hands of foreigners.

‘’It has its own attendant risk problems that is why we are saying cargo handling has to be in the hands of the masters who are the stevedoring companies. By the Act that bring us into existence we are basically a complete indigenised operators.’’

Reacting to the crises between the company and jetty operators, Sunmola said that there were crises existing between the two organisations.

He said that Stevedoring were the eye of the government at every jetty, adding that they collaborate with the port operators and ensure their security.

According to him, only those appointed jetty operators that have skeleton in their cupboard will have a problem to grind with stevedoring services.

Our correspodent reports that Stevedoring is an umbrella organisation for stevedoring companies operating in Nigeria and are solely in charge of all stevedoring regulatory services.

Stevedoring companies also assist other arms of government to ensure smooth operations of the maritime sector.