Tackle forex crisis, maritime workers urge govt

As the country marks its 64th anniversary today (Tuesday), maritime operators have urged the Federal Government to tackle the issue of fluctuating exchange rates to boost importation.

The operators who spoke in Lagos on Monday, however, admitted that the maritime sector had recorded significant growth in the past few years.

The Youth Leader of the Tincan Island Chapter of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents, Sikiru Remilekun, stated that despite the recorded growth, fiscal policies still pose a big challenge to the sector.

“The challenge in the maritime sector especially in import and export has experienced some significant growth over the past few years back, but the major challenge remains the fiscal policies on the dollar floating,” Remilekun said.

He added that pegging the exchange rate for cargo clearance at less than N1,000/$ would grow the sector by over 200 per cent.

“The policy has slowed down the inflow and outflow in the port business, which we have been urging the government to look to by pegging the dollar rate to less than N1,000. This I believe will play another significant role and ensure growth of about 200 per cent.

“However, another challenge is the lack of capacity building and too much bureaucracy/payments, which is affecting the maritime sector,” he stated.

Also speaking, a ship captain, and South-West Director of the Merchant Seafarers Association of Nigeria, Williams Ogunshakin, called on the government to assist MARPOL in the area of cleaning the waterways by creating something similar to the Lagos Waste Management Authority in the waterways across the country.

“The only way we need to assist MARPOL is to create a kind of Lagos Waste Management Authority in the waterways of the country. Let us stop dirt from coming into the waterways,” he said.

According to him, most of the accidents are caused by rags and used items that were dumped carelessly into water bodies.

He maintained that MARPOL could be assisted with either a policy or any other way.

“They have been able to control and minimize accidents on our waterways. They also need to do more in the area of accident prevention, let us do more. Let us operate with zero tolerance for accidents.

“In the past six years, maritime security has been terrible, when we are sailing we are no longer at rest. But due to the effort of our stakeholders and in conjunction with the military we are now getting a recipe in our coast and that is an improvement,” he stated.