There is palpable fear among Executive Management and workers of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) over the Ports and Harbour Bill, which has returned to the senate and it is being deliberated upon for final passage.
The Bill, which seeks to repeal the Nigerian Ports Authority Act, 1955, (as amended) has already scaled third reading at the Senate.
The major fear of the Executive Management Staff and Workers is that the Bill if passed into law, would lead to thousands of workers losing their jobs.
Speaking to Newsmen yesterday, President of the NPA Senior Staff Union, under the aegis of Senior Staff Association of Corporations and Government Owned Companies (SSASCGOC), Maritime branch, Comrade Akinola Bodunde, confirmed that the union in conjunction with Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) are worried about the Bill and are taking a position on it.
“We and the Maritime Workers Union are on this matter; we met last week, we are putting up a position paper on it, we shall send it to the people concerned by next week”.
Comrade Bodunde insisted that the Bill, if passed into law, as previously drafted, will pose dangers to the NPA workers.
“We don’t know if there is a new version of it; and that is why we are trying to get the content of the Bill, when we get the content of the Bill, we would know how to attack it accordingly. It may be different from the one we stopped but we don’t know yet”, he explained.
Recall that six years ago, SSASCGOC and MWUN had fought the Bill to a standstill, causing the 9th Assembly to abandon passage of the Bill.
However, speaking recently at a function in Lagos, the Chairman Senate Committee on Marine Transport, Sen. Wasiu Sanni Eshinlokun, hinted that the Ports and Harbour Bill has already passed third reading.
According to him, the red chamber is ready to enact legislations that would ensure effective take-off of the new Marine and Blue Economy Ministry.
He listed some of the Bills at the Senate, which has scaled third reading to include the NIMASA Cabotage Act, the Ports and Harbour Bill as well as the National Inland Waterways Bill.
He said: “For the Marine and Blue Economy Ministry to take-off, we need to take acquainted with the various legislation that has been enacted. We recall that the Ports and Harbour Bill was sponsored at the 9th Assembly by Hon. Nicolas Ossai”.
The two House unions in 2017 feared that the Bill would cede Labour operations to private individuals, hence they rejected the Bill and staged a protest at the ports.
In a strong worded letter to the lawmakers, the MWUN president, Comrade Adewale Adeyanju, and his Secretary-General, Felix Akingboye, had argued that if the Bill is passed into law, it will lead to massive job loss to their members, adding that not all the workers currently with NPA will be absolved.
It lamented that the concession of the ports impacted negatively on members of the union as no fewer than 12,000 workers were thrown into the already saturated labour market.
