Nigerian shipping community at the weekend expressed concern over the pronounced absence of any competent commercial regulator in the maritime industry and tasked the Federal Government to mandate the Nigerian Shippers Council to fill up the gap.

The shippers who anchored their argument on recent protective efforts of the Council which resulted in the salvaging of N200 million for hapless port operators, posited that such mandate would no doubt only provide the NSC with the impetus to perform better.

The shippers said they came to this conclusion having noted that the Council, even without an enabling law, had helped to reduce the cost of doing business at the port through its alternative dispute resolution role to save extra cost that could have been paid to service providers at the ports.

“The NSC has emerged the most vibrant vehicle for making our voice heard, today” declared the Operations Manager of Mari-trans Nigeria Limited, Mr Dipe Lagunju, who stressed that the country was indeed, yet to optimally harness the Council, in the overall interest of the shipping industry.

While pointing out that the nation’s shippers were genuinely benefitting from the government platform as offered by the shippers’ council, the Operation Manager lauded the authorities for the current pursuit, adding that if the vision was sustained, the shippers would gradually evolve into a formidable force, able to protect both international trade and the citizenry.

“The NSC is qualified to be the economic regulator in all ramifications because they have acted well in supporting us the shippers; besides, they are acting in the context of the Act that established them which gave them no power of enforcement. If, in a bid to make this moderate achievement they resort to arbitration and dispute resolution, then we must acknowledge they have done that creditably well.

“The council is playing a very important role in the sector. So, I strongly believe that the government should consider the transformation of the council for the sake of the country, particularly the Nigerian shippers who would benefit immensely from their services”, he explained further.

Speaking in the same vein, the Chief Executive Officer  of Roska Steve Shipping Limited, Mr Adebayo Adenekan,  while urging the government to consider empowering the Council to perform the tasks of the economic regulator of the nation’s ports industry, maintained that the body had the needed technical expertise to perform the role, adding that  its vast inter-agency experience had placed it in a better position for the metamorphosis than any of its contemporaries in the industry.

Highlighting that the transformation of the NSC into an economic regulator for the nation’s maritime sector would raise the investors’ confidence in the country, the Roska Chief Executive Officer said the Council had so far demonstrated a lot of professionalism in the handling of conflicts between service providers and the service consumers within the maritime sector, disclosing that even his own company had benefited from one of the council’s  core services, resulting in the amicable settlement of an issue which would have resulted in costly litigation.

“Being able to amicably resolve critical issues among parties is a sufficient indication that the Council is presently in a better position to play the role of an economic regulator.

“I support NSC to become the industry’s economic regulator because they have a lot of professionals at their disposal, and in many cases, they have helped us to resolve many maritime issues which were of great importance,” Adenekan stated.