The need for the Federal Government to correct the imbalance
existing between the Eastern and Western Ports have been stressed.

The President of the Association of Indigenous Importers and
Exporters in Niger Delta (AIIEND), Comrade Somiari Prince Halliday made the
call in a chat with The Tide Correspondent in Port Harcourt recently.

Comrae Halliday said the federal government should also as a
matter of urgency look into the berthing fees of vessels coming into the
Eastern ports in order to motivate vessel owners and importers to patronise the
Ports.

He said that the activities of SGS, a service provider with
Nigeria Custom Service has been making operations at the sea ports high, adding
that “its inimical operations of uplifting values and quantity adjustments has
made the benchmark given by customs across board unrealistic at the Eastern
ports as duty payment in the East is far more above what is paid at the Western
Ports”.

The President urged the federal Government to also look at
the importation of rice in silos as well as bagging them in a dusty environment
littered with cement at the Port Harcourt Port, saying that the health hazards
associated with such condition should better be imagined.

He called on the authorities to relocated them to their own
private Jetty so that it could create employment for the teeming youths of the
society and also bring development.

“Government should as a matter of urgency ascertain the
hygienic nature of those vessels to avert possible outbreak of epidemic arising
from the consumption of such rice by Nigerians”, he said.

Comrade Halliday appealed to the government to also address
the issue of denials or discrimination meted out to indigenous operators in
deep sea operations, adding that the monopolisation of the operation by
foreigners is not healthy to the law establishing local content policy.

The Association President also called on the Federal
Government to rehabilitate the Port Harcourt Port as it has not been renovated
since its inception unlike the Lagos Ports, repair the only access road to the port
and dredge the channels to the Port to allow bigger vessels to come in, as
these are part of the reasons the ports in the East have been under-utilised,
appealing to the new management of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) to
urgently look into these issues.

Collins Barasimeye