The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Concessioning

  • GE’s exit ‘ll not affect concessioning of narrow gauge, says Fed Govt

    THE Federal Government said yesterday that the exit of American industrial giant, General Electric, from the concessioning agreement on the narrow gauge will not affect modernisation of railway.

    It said GE’s exit was borne out of the firm’s decision to divest from transportation business into health and environment sectors of the economy.

    Minister for Transportation Rotimi Amaechi, who said this in Lagos yesterday, added that the GE’s exit would not affect the Federal Government’s commitment to modernise the railway.

    He said the concessioning of the narrow gauge is irreversible.

    GE, by the concessioning, ought to have injected $2.7 billion into the narrow gauge system to overall and modernise the narrow gauge.

    Under the agreement, GE was meant to inject 20 locomotives and 200 wagons into the narrow gauge, which was meant to breath a new lease of life into cargo traffic.

    Amaechi said with GE’s exit, Transnet Logistics Ltd. (which based on original agreement, was handling tracks), would now be the lead partner to drive the process.

    Transnet Logistics Ltd. would be leading other consulting consortium that includes AP Moller Terminal Ltd (APMT), which is in charge of containers, Sino Hydro, in charge of logistics.

    GE had  been awarded the concessioning of the nation’s narrow gauge, the major railway asset, by the Muhammadu Buhari administration in 2016, with the aim of modernising cargo and passenger operations on the narrow gauge.

    Under the agreement, GE was to operate the system for 30 years.

    The concession, however, ran into stormy waters, as series of controversy overtook its operations, forcing the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to set up a transactions advisors committee.

    The committee drew up an interim roadmap for the eventual takeover of the entire railway asset of the corporation after a 12-month period.

    The committee had initially proposed that GE begins the operations of the acquired asset in May 2017, it later shifted to December of same year, which again had to be shifted to first quarter this year.

    Early signs that the concession agreement might have been botched, however, reared its head as the GE refused to takeoff.

    The Federal Government had intended the new owners to run full operations – passenger and cargo along the corridor. But GE had its eyes exclusively on cargo business.

     

     

     

  • Union rejects Rail’s planned concessioning

    The Nigeria Union of Railway Workers (NURW) has rejected the planned concessioning of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) to safeguard selling public assets without appropriate technical valuation and labour disengagement.

    Its Secretary-General, Mr Segun Esan, who disclosed this to reporters in Lagos, noted that concessioning had reinforced underdevelopment, and encouraged massive unemployment with corruption.

    He said the system threatened the country’s security and existence. According to him, the system and the policy of concessioning had been consistently observed, and that assets of privatised enterprises had been deliberately undervalued.

    He described the policy as an abuse of due process, characterised by corruption, which has affected the outcome of the exercise, adding that the Bureau of Public Entreprise (BPE) has failed to exercise its oversight functions on the privatisation process.

    The House of Representatives had, at its plenary, moved to investigate the planned concessioning of the Nigerian Railways Corporation to General Electric, to avoid violating Nigeria’s privatisation law.

    The Federal Government constituted a 20-member committee on the concessioning of the Eastern and Western Lines of the Railways.

    Vice President Yemi Osinbajo inaugurated the committee headed by the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, at the Presidential Villa in August.

  • Stakeholders ask National Assembly strip NPA of regulatory function

    Stakeholders ask National Assembly strip NPA of regulatory function

    Stakeholders in the maritime sector Tuesday asked the National Assembly to pass into law the Ports and Harbour Bill to give legal backing to ports concessioning of 2006.

    he Act, they said, should also set performance benchmarks in the sector in accordance with global best practices.

    At a one- day Public Hearing on Amendment of National Inland Water Ways Authority Act (Amendment Bill, 2016 and Nigerian Ports Authority Act( Amendment) Bill, 2016, representatives of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, Ports Terminal Operators, Nigerian Shipping Association and Maritime Advocacy Group were unanimous in their appeal to the National Assembly to take a look at the Ports and Harbour bill with a view to separating the regulation functions of the ports from the day to day functions of the Nigerian Ports Authority with a view to making the ports work more efficiently.

    The Public Hearing was organized by the Senate Committee on Marine Transport in Abuja.

    Chief Chidi Iluogu (SAN) who represented Nigerian Ports Terminal Operators said there was a need for the National Assembly to ensure that adequate frame work was in place for private sector participation and to promote efficiency based on principles of accountability, competition, fairness and transparency.

    Iluogu noted that it was only fair that functions are streamlined in the sector so as to reap the maximum benefits from the ports.

    He said,” It is a source of concern that many years after the concessioning the laws were still being awaited,” emphasizing that the nation’s ports must be empowered by law to work efficiently.

    A former Director of Post Privatization Monitoring at the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Mr. Kashim Ibrahim Mohammed on his own noted that the transportation bills currently pending before the National Assembly will stem the tide of crisis bedeviling cargo handling and clearance at the nation’s ports.

    He insisted that for the ports to work optimally, the legislature must enact laws that will separate the functions of the Nigerian Ports Authority as the landlord from that of the regulation, urging the legislature to speed up the passage of the National Transport Commission Bill that was also before it.

    He said he anticipates a situation where the Nigerian Shippers Council will be adapted to transmute into the National Transportation Commission (NTC) since the Council had latent statutory functions that are similar to those of the proposed NTC.

    Senator Khairat Gwadabe who spoke on behalf of Maritime Advocacy Group said concessioning of ports was the modern trend globally as virtually all maritime nations have carried out one form of ports concession or the other but lamented that in Nigeria, the exercise was done without first putting the legal frame work in place.

    She urged the National Assembly to expedite action on the transport related bills pending before it so as to provide a level playing field that will see Nigeria rake in billions of naira in non-oil revenue from the ports.

    Chairman of the Committee, Senator Ahmed Rufai Sani said that he was optimistic that the country’s maritime sector would contribute tremendously to the nation’s economic recovery efforts.

    He said, “With the concessioning of the Port Terminals in 2006, the Nigerian Ports Authority is should no longer be an active participant in the day-to-day running of ports in Nigeria.”

    He added that the Senate will set new benchmarks and give the needed legal backing, adding that the proposed amendment would look towards the direction of huge revenue generation and creation of jobs.

    Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, said that the country was losing huge sums of revenue through inefficiencies in the Nigerian maritime transport system.
    Saraki who was represented by the Deputy Minority Whip, Senator Philip Aduda, noted that the nation’s Marine sector has fallen short of meeting the needs of water transportation system and by extension, the nation was losing huge revenues.

    He said that the effective means of water transport was the creation of enabling environment for private participation, saying the 8th Senate was committed to making sure, Acts of NIWA and that of NPA were amended.

    “The 8th Senate will take time to create enabling laws for private sector participation and NIWA must be part of Nigeria’s agencies that generates revenues for economic growth,” he said.

  • Workers reject FG’s planned concession of railways

    Workers reject FG’s planned concession of railways

    The Nigeria Union of Railway Workers (NURW) has appealed to the Federal Government to withhold its planned concession of the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC).

    Mr Segun Esan, the Secretary General of the union, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos that there was no reason to defend privatisation and concessioning as policy of economic development.

    Esan said that concession has simply reinforced underdevelopment, encourage massive unemployment, with massive corruption and social inequality.

    According to him, systems threaten the security and corporate existence of the country since inception of its implementation in the country.

    “The policy has been consistently observed that assets of privatised enterprises have been deliberately undervalued.

    “There has been no due process with high level collusion between the authorities and the companies that bought the privatised enterprises, leading to failure to pay over the appropriate monies to government coffers.

    “The Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) has also failed to exercise its oversight functions on the privatisation process,’’ the unions regretted.

    He described the policy as an abuse of due process characterised by corruption which has affected the outcome of the exercise.

    According to him, the privatisation of the power sector offers another insight into the failure of the system and the fraudulent actions surrounding it.

    Esan said that government has also injected huge capital into the sector without corresponding results.

    He appealed to the federal government to withdraw its planned concessioning of the corporation to help safeguard selling public asset without appropriate technical valuation with labour disengagement.

    NAN recalls that the Federal House of Representatives had at its plenary on Oct. 25, moved to investigate the planned concessioning of the Nigeria Railways Corporation to General Electric (GE) to avoid violating Nigeria’s privatisation laws.

    The lawmakers also looked into the moves by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to concession the Western (Lagos-Kano) and Eastern (Port Harcourt- Maiduguri) rail lines to GE without recourse to the Bureau of Public Enterprises and Privatisation regulations.

    NAN further reports that federal government had constituted a 20-member steering committee on the concessioning of the Eastern and Western lines of the Nigeria Railways.

    The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, inaugurated the committee, headed by the Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, in August.

  • Concessioning the airports

    SIR: The attainment of category one status by the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), many years ago, and the heavy traffic of both passenger and cargo through the airport, puts it ahead, in terms of viability, compared with other gateways  in the country. In short, Lagos handles about 70 per cent volume of passenger/cargo traffic and this position undoubtedly confirms the airport as a natural hub for West Africa

    As it stands, only four airports in the country could be said to be economically viable and they are: MMIA, Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Port Harcourt International Airport, Malam Aminu Kano International Airport. Others depend on these four for survival, due to limited number of flights, operating into them. This explains the reactions by stakeholders to any plan by government on them.

    No wonder the unions in the industry reacted immediately to the news of the proposed concession of the airports as soon as it was made public by the government. Those who spoke queried why the government should single out the four already enterprising airports for concession instead of the unviable ones.

    The truth remains that, the economy of Nigeria which is presently not doing well has provided opportunity once again for policy makers in the aviation sector to look inward, prompting the on-going plans to concession some of the airport and hopefully give Nigeria her prime place in the aviation global body and for the overall well-being of all stakeholders in this critical sector. This feat indeed can only be achieved when policy makers separate politics from the issue of economic growth especially now the country needs genuine contributions from all to come out from the present recession the economy is grappling with.

    Statistics shows that MMIA recorded a total of 13,891,667 passengers in 2013 and in 2014 passenger traffic surged to 14,899,958, pointing to 7.26% increase. These are clear indication that the sector is on the path of recovery.

    Although the continued capital flight, and the stunted growth of the sector, coupled with mortality rate of domestic operators within five years of starting operations to a large extent has not helped matters, the major challenge always as admitted by players in the industry, is the inability of the country to reciprocate its Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA), and the dominance of international carriers on regional and international routes.

    Head or tail, what is paramount is making our airports viable, profitable and sustainable. The implementation of the plan to privatise these airports through the concession methodology is being awaited with necessary optimism; barring the usual hiccups, it may be a step in the right direction to moving the aviation industry forward.

    • Cosmas Okereafor

    Lagos.

  • Concessioning, my foot

    It is heart-warming that many people expressed surprise over my in-depth knowledge of the many atrocities in our sports federations. Many readers have condemned me as strictly a football writer.

    I accept that claim because football remains our number one sport. And I really love to persuade readers to cultivate the habit of reading The Nation and Sportinglife, ahead of others. My dream is that someday soon, The Nation and Sportinglife will be Nigerians’ encyclopedia for information.

    One of the anomalies of the last sports federations’ elections was the concessioning of unpopular sports. One had thought that popular sports, such as athletics, basketball, polo, gymnastics, boxing, table tennis, cycling, golf and cricket, with rich history of sponsorship, should have formed the fulcrum of concessioned sports.

    In asking for those sports to be concessioned, what the eggheads at the National Sports Commission (NSC) ought to have done was to visit the firms that identified and bankrolled those games, urging them to return. They should have guaranteed those firms tax waivers for their involvement in sports. They should also have allowed such firms’ nominees to run the show themselves since they pulled out because there wasn’t proper accountability for the cash pumped into such federations.

    Chief Molade Okoya-Thomas has singlehandedly bankrolled a table tennis competition for over 43 years. Sponsors fell over one another the golden era of ping pong. The present Lagos State Commissioner for Sports, Barrister Enitan Oshodi, made table tennis competitions the platform for advertisers to connect their goods and services to the masses that thronged the stadium. Enitan’s reign ensured that our players interfaced with the best players in the world through exchange programmes in China, for instance.

    The mood in the sports hall was always electrifying, with the spectators cheering ceaselessly, as players exhibited their skills. No sponsor would shy away from exploiting such platforms, especially, if their goods are the consumables. The feel- good setting that comes with watching the fans sip from sponsors’ products on television is unquantifiable.

    Veteran journalist Eddy Adenirokun changed volleyball by appealing to the corporate world to support the sport. Volleyball players, like those of other sports with sponsorship, wore the jerseys on which the sponsors’ products’ names were inscribed. Nigerians looked forward to volleyball championships. Today, such events hold only when elections or international tournaments are near.

    It must be stated here too that our sports didn’t lack sponsorship. The administrators of yore were honest. They spent the cash on what it was earmarked for. They organised competitions that compelled sponsors to advertise their stuff. They accounted for the cash spent and introduced innovations that made the events exciting.

    Adequate funding from the firms will come when federations’ boards made up of credible people. The presence of men and women of integrity in the boards will restore the confidence of those who want to commit cash to such sports.

    Good leadership is infectious. It propels all other components of sport to always produce their best. It elicits discipline within the rank and file of federations. It reduces suspicion among members, athletes and coaches because they trust their leaders.

    Lagos State is the new Mecca of boxing, simply because of the Lagos Boxing Hall of Fame, headed by Olawale Edun, the former commissioner for finance. Edun has set the template for boxing to thrive by targeting the grassroots for talents. Sports development not directed at the grassroots won’t work.

    Edun’s template for boxing, in other climes, would compel the government to persuade him to expand the scope to discover boxers round the country. Children look forward to the last Saturday of every month for the Lagos boxing hall of Fame shows. The ripple effect of this laudable programmme is the formation of boxing clubs and programmes across the local government areas in the Centre of Excellence.

    Interestingly, eight boxers of the Lagos State Amateur Boxing Association (LSABA) will challenge their British counterparts at the fourth international bouts organised by the Lagos State Boxing Hall of Fame (LSBHF).

    Edun, LSBHF Chairman, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos that the competition would hold in October in London. The boxers are seven boys and a girl.

    Edun said that the motive for the bouts was to give the boxers some international exposure, to increase their proficiency and prepare them for other international engagements.

    According to him, the British Boxing Association invited the boxers for the international competition for them to be well-grounded in the sport.

    “The international bouts will expose our boxers to international competitions as well as helping them to sharpen their competitive edge for other international engagements,’’ Edun said.

    Indeed, the absence of boarding houses in secondary schools has killed sports. As a student of government College Ughelli, I could play as many as six sports because the facilities were inside the premises. GCU had a sports calendar where students knew what clothes to bring to the school each term. Immensely talented students looked forward to winning the Victor Ludorum Cup, aside being invited to play for the school culminating in wearing the state and Nigeria’s colours in international sports competitions.

    There were also several school sports competitions, such as Hussey Shield, Gray Powell Cup, Morocco Clarke, Lady Manuwa Cup, not forgetting the National Sports Festivals that have now become the platform for big officials to siphon money.

    Rather than waste cash on hosting National Sports Festivals, governors should urge the local government areas to build sports facilities that will attract the indigenes to embrace sports. I look forward to the day when there will be at least one sporting facility in each of the 774 local government areas. It would be the fillip in ensuring that sports thrives as a business in Nigeria as in other climes.

    The indigenes would definitely learn to play the sport available to them. Those who cannot participate will become coaches while the rich men and women will bring the cash to run competitions and pay the athletes.

    Sport can create employment, take the indigenes off crime and improve their health.

    Sports Minister Bolaji Abdullahi should ensure that the new boards in the sports federations have credible people, with the pedigree of changing the fortunes of distressed business concerns.

    We need to stop this trend of recycling people who end up waiting for government cash to run the sporting associations. A lot of people have discerning templates to change the face of the industry, if given the opportunity to do so.

    Lagos State is experiencing a sports renaissance, using credible people who the corporate world can trust. There is hardly any sports programme in Lagos that isn’t sponsored by a blue-chip firm. Why? Simple; those who run sporting bodies ensure that every dime provided is spent on the purpose for which it was given. There is accountability, which inevitably eliminates scams and suspicion among members.

    The talents are here; what we lack is a culture that is anchored on a calendar that sports friendly blue-chip companies can incorporate into their fiscal budgets.

    Our sports facilities must be maintained. Old ones should be upgraded to provide the platform for local and international competitions for our athletes.

    The minister should ensure that the National Institute for Sports (NIS) performs like its contemporaries elsewhere. It should be upgraded to function as the training ground for our coaches. It should also serve as the brain-box of our sports where policies are implemented.

    Oshiomhole, this is your life

    The die is cast. Today in Okpepke, Comrade Governor Adams Oshiomhole has his job cut out for him-he must finish the 10km Marathon Race. Not one to shy away from challenges, Oshiomhole has been training to prove his critics wrong.

    But can Oshiomhole really complete the race? Why not? But the bigger poser would be if he will know when to back off from the race.

    The governor will find sufficient support from the indigenes and my heart tells me that he will complete the race.

    Come on Comrade, you are the man to beat today. This is another one-man one-race. Show them that you have what it takes. Carry go Osho baba. Talk na do governor. I hail o!

    For the visitors from East Africa, the comrade is a man of the people. Underrate him at your peril. Governor Oshiomhole is the real deal at the maiden 10km Marathon race in Okpepke.