By Favour Efughi
Harboursandport.com: Lagos ---Former Acting Managing Director
of the National Unity Line, NUL, Mr. Willy Illa, has said that the Federal Government
should have no business in the port operations in the country, as they only see
the ports as a means of revenue collection.
![]() |
Arial view of one of the nation's seaport. |
Speaking
with harboursandport.com, Illa explained that the government does not invest in
the port development, so they should not be in the port administration, saying;
“The government has no business being in ports administration, they should just
collect their revenue and leave port administration to private operators for
efficiency.”
The former
Managing Director of NUL also frowned at the attitude of the Maritime Workers Union
of Nigeria, MWUN, for their constant strikes on issues that concerning
involvement of private sector operators in port administration, saying that
they are only interested in job losses without looking at what is going to be
the effect of Ports and Harbours Bill if passes, on a larger Nigerian economy.
“Will going
on strike help Nigeria get out of the recession? How will it add value to our
port activity? Instead we should look for ways to change Nigeria.
“The Ports
and Harbours Bill has been existence even before democracy, let us see how we
can improve our practices at the ports. Let us look for a way to modernize our port
operations. Look at countries like Singapore, and see what efficiency in the
port means,” he said.
He charged
workers to make sacrifices to make sure Nigeria gets better, stating that they
should not be scared of losing their jobs. “After 35 years of work, what next?”
he said.
“Nobody
wants to make sacrifice, that is why we are still in the same place. Why are we
afraid of change all the time, why are we afraid to try the new things? We are
not moving forward. We should leave this mentality that says “we would lose our
jobs”; there is nothing to lose. Let us make the necessary sacrifices to
develop Nigeria,” he concluded.
No comments:
Post a Comment