NPA Allegedly Sacks 6,000 Workers At Tin Can Port Jetty
Not less than six thousand persons employed directly and indirectly by jetty operators around Tin Can Island Port were allegedly rendered jobless by Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) when it revoked the lease agreements it entered into with some companies to conduct jetty and barging operations on the Tin Can Island Port waterways
The affected operators under the aegis of Concerned Maritime Operators (CMO) has condemned the NPA over the act, while calling on the federal government to prevail on the NPA management to compensate the affected companies quickly to recoup their investments.
DAILY TREND NEWS recalls that the NPA in a joint task force operation recently embarked on a clean up exercise around the Tin Can Island Port, dislodging squatters, food vendors, miscreants around the port, while also destroying illegal structures.
The CMO in a press statement sent to our correspondent, signed by the Coordinator, Barrister Oladapo Odunoye, argued that the revocation had rubbished the efforts of the affected companies in ameliorating the intractable traffic gridlock on the Lagos port access roads, by moving huge volumes of cargo safer, cheaply and more conveniently thus making the Ease of Doing Business Policy of the Federal Government of Nigeria workable.
The Coordinator said that none of the affected members broke any of the conditions contained in the signed agreements.
Odunoye said “this action of NPA is highly-handed and at best a travesty against justice because the various leases which are fully paid upfront had only gone a negligible fraction of their respective tenure before revocation hammer hit them.
“This arbitrary action of NPA saw the wanton destruction of the structures, equipment and other investments belonging to the licences at the lease sites located between the Tin Can Island Port Complex (TCIPC) First and Second Gates by Port Novo Creek in a ruthless illegal mission enforced by a joint task force of heavily armed military and paramilitary personnel deployed by NPA.
“Consequently, no less than six thousand persons employed directly and indirectly by the affected operators have been rendered redundant under the prevailing galloping inflation and insecurity sweeping across Nigeria.
“Similarly, the revocation has caused the affected operators huge losses in terms of revoked contracts with foreign investors, painting Nigeria before the international community as an unstable investment destination.
“Clearly, in giving effect to the conditions in the licence agreements signed between the respective licenses and the NPA, the NPA revocation orders on our affected members’ lease or Temporary Occupation Licences (TOL) were not informed by the strict adherence to the principles of the public interest to favour some land grabbing vested interest set on a course of a hostile takeover of a hitherto dormant location that the smart and hard work breathed a new lease of life.
The CMO Coordinator stressed that the action of NPA negates the various economic policies of the present Federal Government administration of President Muhammadu Buhari which are strategically designed to promote industrialization, banish poverty through job creation.
“It is baffling that under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari which has done and continues to do so much in developing stimulus packages to alleviate poverty through supportive policies, including boosting local content and financial incentives to entrepreneurs, an institution of the federal government, such as NPA, is engaging in antics that are antithetical to gainful legitimate businesses and throw several persons into already congested unemployment markets.
“We posit that the action of the NPA in effecting the premature revocation of our members’ leases on the said space is without due process, quite unconstitutional,” said Odunoye..
