The Senior Staff Association of Communications and Transports Associations and Corporations SACTAC, has called on the federal government to be more proactive in its reforms in the maritime sector.

National Publicity Secretary of the Association, Comrade Emmanuel Inyang stated this during an interview with The Tide in Port Harcourt yesterday while commenting on the appointment of a new management for the Nigerian Ports Authority, by President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

Comrade Inyang who congratulated the new Managing Director, Mallam Abdullahi Habbib, urged the federal government to keep faith with its reform policies in the sector, beyond rethorics by being consistent with the policy implementations.

He pointed out that lack of long term planning and stability in management had rubbed off negatively on ports development thereby hindering the prospect of being the hub in Ports Development in Africa. “When management is changed intermittently, the people appointed attempts to change everything within a short duration, before they are replaced by another management, the changes that previous administrations tried to proffer are often swept under the carpet, rendering the system docile and ineffective”.

The SACTAC P.R.O also attributed the lapses in the maritime sector to lack of effective budgetary provision and implementation, and advocated for improved funding for the sector.

He also attributed the decline in the maritime sector to decades of military rule and unnecessary concession of ports asset based on political compromise which, he noted depleted the revenue base for the country.

He cautioned that “such tendencies must be nibbed in the bud in the democratic system so that ports system does not drift into another serious decay”.

He recommended that issues of research and technological development should be taken seriously, while stakeholders should delves into the past to “figure out what brought the system to its present predicament”.

Taneh Beemene