Business
Dockworkers Threaten To Paralyse Ports Activities In N’Delta
The dockworkers mem
bers of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (NWUN) operating in the South-South geo-political zone seaports have threatened to paralyse ports activities in the zone.
Speaking to The Tide in Port Harcourt on Wednesday a Senior official of the union, Comrade Benjamin LongJohn, said the union’s threat became necessary following an alleged attempt by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) management to sack over ten thousand members of the union in the south-south geo-political zone.
LongJohn said the imminent massive sack of the Dock workers of the Seaports operating as On-board Tally Clerks and Cargo Security area amount to ethnic cleansing by the NPA management under its Managing Director, Alhaji Habibu Abdullahi.
He said NPA had through a national daily newspaper in December 2014 indicated the imminent sack of the Dock Labour Employers and the entire dock workers from the first week of January 2015.
He said the intention of the NPA authority was to replace the dock workers with a preferred so called cargo surveyors who are cronies of those at the helm of NPA affairs.
longJohn explained that are average cargo ship could engage about sixty dock workers per day whose wages are already built into the vessel charges, but only two cargo surveyors are required on a ship wit the same wages as the full complement of the tally clerks.
He said the jobs of the board tally clerks and cargo security men are internationally acceptable and been in existence since the commencement of the Port Industry in Nigeria.
The union leader said that the union members perform very critical role as detecting contrabands imported into the country, stressing that tally clerk keeps record of cargo loaded and discharged by each ship which helped the NPA guard against under declaration of Cargo.
He said that the tally clerks work cooperatively with the security and other government parastatals at the sea ports to detect any illegal activities but the cargo surveyors work with only storage plans and cargo manifest per the declaration of the ship agents.
LongJohn appealed to the stakeholders in the maritime sector in the South-South geo-political zone to call the management of NPA to order, thereby, rescinding the decision to sack over ten thousand dock workers eke-out legitimate livelihood at the sea ports.
Philip Okparaji
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