Warri NPA Workers Protest Planned Concessioning Of Warri Ports

Activities were yesterday paralysed at the Warri Ports as workers of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) protested against the Ports and Harbour Bill 2015.

The workers, who went out under the umbrellas of labour organisations, including the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria, Senior Staff Association of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Shippers Council, argued that the bill, if passed into law, would give government power to concession the ports to private operators, a situation which they claimed would lead mass loss of jobs.

The Vice President-General of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria, Chris Idagbon, yesterday said: “Those who see themselves as bourgeoisies want to take food from the mouth of the poor. There is nothing wrong with NPA as established by a 1955 Act as amended, but the National Assembly through their cohorts have decided to repeal that act and to establish the Ports and Harbour Commission to take over all the functions of NPA.

“They want to concession the harbor to private hands which to us is inimical to the country. One this is the major place where the country earns her foreign exchange. If given to private hands, it is to the detriment of the country. Two, the security of the county would be at threat if this place is given out to private hands because this is where vessels come into the country. Nobody would be able to monitor what comes into the country.

“Thirdly, when the concessioning of the port terminals was done in the past, we were made to understand that these people, when they assume responsibility, were going to engage everybody that NPA was going to disengage, but after that concessioning, they could not engage even a thousand of the over 14,000 persons NPA disengaged till today and all were left to the unemployment market.

“Now this bill is coming again and they want to deceive us that when established, there will be effectiveness and so on and so forth. Till today there is no value in the concessioning of the ports terminals that was not there during the time NPA undertook terminal operations. We are saying no to the Ports and Harbour Bill.”

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