The National Coordinator, Port Standing Task Team (PSTT), Comrade Moses Fadipe, is an interviewer’s delight any day. His fearlessness, knowledge and candour make him a valuable human asset to the maritime industry. In this interview with SHIPS & PORTS’ Abolanle Oluwatola, Fadipe speaks on the challenges being tackled by the PSTT and his new book, which will be launched in Lagos on Thursday.
Excerpts:
Can you bring us up to speed on the activities of the Port Standing Task Team, which you head?
The activities of the Port Standing Task Team (PSTT) from March 2021 till date has really transformed the maritime landscape in Nigeria. Nigeria as a nation has never had it so well in the area of vessel reception. This is the first time we are getting it right. When you talk of vessel reception, you talk about arrival of vessels and departure. Before now, a Captain coming to Nigeria will tell his principal to avail him a sum of twenty thousand dollars as gratification for public officials when they come on board or else the sailing schedule will be interrupted but now, when a vessel calls at anchorage waiting to be piloted, you will remain there as long as it takes a public official of the port agency to be ready to bring you in. Also, the time it takes to move from anchorage to the bar was five hours after you have paid what is expected of you but today, that process has been reduced to ninety minutes. That type of delay is a cost. When you also get to the berth, you will have to wait for a public official to attend to you and until the Port Health enters your vessel, declare free party, nobody can work on the vessel. The rule of the game now says a Port Health must bear the vessel within thirty minutes of berthing at the port. If it is more than that, you will come and explain to the Port Standing Task Team why it is more than that. In the past, anybody can berth vessel whether you are a uniformed man or not but that is not the case today. We now have required agencies who can board vessels. And when you board, you must go through the gangway where you register your presence in black and white and when leaving you also register your exit. When you go on board, you have a timeline. For example, the Customs and Immigration go on board at the same time and they must be down after thirty minutes. Even when going there as a public official, there are a number of officials that can go in at once. It is only two men from the Customs side. All these have been streamlined unlike in the past. Outside that, we have the terminal operations which have improved tremendously and terminals can testify to that because we now do joint examination of cargos which has not been there before.
So how do you keep difficult government officials in check?
Everyday, examination commences at 9am to 4pm. Everyone must leave the terminal by 4pm. We informed all the terminal operators that boxes that are due for examination must be positioned overnight. If you position two hundred boxes by night, it is those two hundred that will be examined the next day. The examination starts at 9am and ends sat 4pm.
We reduced sample taking to the barest minimum because then, an agency of government will tell you, you cannot take samples. Samples should be taken in little quantities as long as they are the same product. Once they have been tested, they are then returned back to the owners. If these items are taken away, the importer will in turn add it to cost, which will be borne by you and me.
How about ship rummaging?
Well, it has been excellent to the point that the industry is telling the story. In March 2022, at the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network Conference in Switzerland where all oceangoing vessels gather to appraise themselves on their operations, they appraised our rummaging process and adjudged Nigeria as the best vessel berthing rummaging in the whole world. They gave Nigeria an award and said that before then, it takes their vessels an average of USD115 to come in and go out but now, it is done at zero cost. Also, in their conference in 2019, they said they are partnership with Nigeria as a nation has yielded tremendous progress in the area of vessel berthing and rummaging. They also told us that there is a committee on Bonny which they set up in the past to tackle Bonny’s problem and they affirmed that anyone who could come to Bonny without hitch is a very good captain. They told us that they have disbanded the committee handling it. So, it has been a lot of gains for Nigeria as a nation. Ghana is now adopting the Nigerian Port Process Manual and adapting it to their maritime operation. Also, corruption risk assessment is also going on in Ghana to appraise the entire marine industry. This is something they are taking away from Nigeria so Nigeria must wake up and know that we have something to export and be at its forefront. Argentina is copying us; Ukraine is coping us. Egypt, Bangladesh and India are also taking after us.
How about the fight against corruption both inside the port and on the port access roads?
Corruption is in two phases namely the physical and the invisible corrupt practices. An example is when you come to visit me as an agency and you expect me to sign your papers so you can go to the next stage and I say, ‘let me call the other man there to see if they have opened for you to go there’. At the point of calling the man I then say, ‘I didn’t know there is no credit, what do we do? And I don’t have money o. What will you do?’ You will give me the money. That is an act of corruption. The corrupt practice itself is when an agency official opens the book and says, ‘I am taking N10,000 from you instead of the N2,000 you ought to pay. The invisible one is when an officer will sit down at the port gate and note all the trucks of a particular company that passes and send the bill to the company for the day. If you don’t send the money, your trucks will not pass the following day and that is the moist dangerous one. We have dealt with a lot of those perpetrating this act so we are now looking at how to dissuade the givers from continuing in the act because they have seen it as a way of life. We do not have to be there sometimes, we use intelligence. When you are caught, you have a process to go through and when you go through that process, you face the consequences. It is either you are prosecuted, jailed or dismissed. So, any of the options that fits into your infraction determines the consequence. The intelligence is for us, the physical is when you see our men physically at the port. Sometimes, they are visible but at other times, they are not but they are still doing their jobs. In addition, there are other deadliest ways of perpetrating corruption which transcends the man collecting because he has to give account to somebody in higher places.
Tell us about your book, which will be presented to the public this Thursday?
The book titled ‘Nigeria and Global Maritime Industry’ will tell everyone what has happened when Nigeria started marine operations in the 1950s till the marine and blue economy years. This has to be documented for the younger generations, for researchers to look at and for Nigeria as a nation because I have worked there and I am writing from my experience. I am leaving the book behind as a legacy. The book is for everyone who is either a provider or consumer of shipping services all over the world.
What is the key message of the book?
The question the book tries to answer is, ‘Is Nigeria on the wrong side of the ocean?’
Why have we not progressed with 850km coastline and 200 nautical miles water front when countries with ten percent of what we have are the most prosperous nations in the whole world? What has gone wrong? And if we are not on the wrong side of the ocean, what should have been done that was not done? What is the way forward. These are the issues the book will be addressing.
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