Recruitment: NPA mgt cadre bloated —Workers

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Senior Staff Association has said that despite the recruitment exercise which was carried out recently at the agency, the management failed to use the opportunity to address the dearth of junior workers in the system. This is even as the association revealed that the recent recruitment ended up adding more senior management staff to the already full management cadre, thereby thickening that cadre.

President of the union, Comrade Adamu Yau, stated this in an interview with newsmen recently in Lagos, stating that most of the staff recruited in the last exercise were on senior cadre.

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It will be recalled that the NPA Branch President of Maritime Workers Union (MWUN) Comrade Ifeanyi Mazeli had raised a similar concern earlier in the year, warning that about 200 jetties in Nigeria remain unmanned due to lack of intake of junior workers into NPA in the past decade.

Speaking with journalists in his office in Lagos, the Senior Staff President confirmed that “The recruitment that happened recently did not solve the dearth of junior workers in the NPA. The top is still heavy. It didn’t add anything new to the structure of the authority. Most of the new intakes are senior officers, so the top management is still thick.”

Comrade Yau however stated that as of today, the two house unions in NPA do not have problems with the management in terms of welfare. He assured that the present management under Hadiza Bala Usman has done well in enhancing workers welfare.

In terms of promotion, Comrade Yau revealed that in the last three years, the present management has effected promotion exercise three times.

“Right now as I speak with you, promotion letters are being given to eligible staff and officers. When a staff or officer is not stagnated, he or she will be able to put in his best,” he said.

On the dredging of Warri port, Comrade Yau said that the dredging works are ongoing. He advised that in order to make Warri Port and Calabar Port attractive to importers and bring more ships into the region, the Nigerian Shippers Council should provide incentives for importers for them to use both ports.

“Despite the fact that Lagos ports are congested, importers have refused to make use of other ports around the country.

“Stemming vessels to Warri and Calabar Ports depends on the importer or the shipper. They are using Lagos because of the market here. In Lagos, when an importer brings a container, at the point of discharge at the warehouse, you will see people surrounding the container, waiting for what they can buy from it, but in Delta and Calabar, this is very rare.

“In Lagos, anything that comes out of the container, people are there to buy it. This is what made Lagos port to be congested with containers, the market here is very high. The importer at the point of loading decides where the container goes to and not the authority in Nigerian port, and most of them chose Lagos.

“The Federal Government through the shippers Council should expedite action on how to woo Nigerian importers with incentives in order for them to use other ports in the country,” he said.