No fewer than 18 dockworkers working in Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Onne and Rivers Ports died in 2019 due to poverty and hardship.
Also, majority of the dockworkers are begging to survive as there are no permanent jobs for them to feed their families.
The Trustee of Dockworkers Branch of Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN), Comrade Waite Harry,  disclosed this to The Tide  during an interview in Port Harcourt, recently.
Harry said the deceased dockworkers were working with Onne and Rivers Ports before they passed on due to poverty and unemployment.
He said some of the dockworkers could not pay their rents and school fees for their children, even as some could not afford to feed daily.
Comrade Harry who described the dockworkers as a group of casual workers who are not in a permanent salary payroll by the NPA, but are hired to discharge cargoes when vessels arrive the port.
He disclosed that the union lost a unit organising officer to typhoid some weeks ago as he could not afford proper medications.
“Dockworkers are passing through hell as they do not receive salary like other workers in the ports”. Harry said.
Harry appealed to NPA management to settle their disagreements with the management of BUA Ports and Terminals so as to recall disengaged workers to work.
He noted that the decommissioning of BUA jetties by NPA had  drastically affected the living conditions of dockworkers in the state.
According to Harry, if NPA is no longer conformable with the activities of BUA Ports and Terminals, another contractor should be engaged as to bring succour to the lives of dockworkers working in the port.

By: Chinedu Wosu