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Message: [QUOTE="Munyaradzi Mafaro, post: 79562, member: 636"] So the Nigerian Shippers’ Council claims it saved the maritime industry over ten billion naira in the last couple of years just by keeping disputes out of court. Their boss, Dr. Pius Akutah, said their little arbitration unit handled hundreds of cases, saving four billion this year alone after saving six billion last year. The big play, though, is a new piece of legislation called the Nigerian Port Economic Regulatory Agency Bill, which is just sitting there waiting for the president's signature to replace some ancient decree from the seventies. They are also building fourteen vehicle transit parks all over the map, supposedly to stop drivers from dying of fatigue and to create secure spots for logistics. On top of that, they are pushing to finish a bunch of inland dry ports, like the one in Funtua, with President Tinubu apparently nagging them about it. Akutah admitted Nigeria totally dropped the ball by not signing the African trade pact right away, which let Ghana snag the secretariat and a bunch of jobs. Now he says the country has to become a continental shipping hub to fix stupid routing issues, like a ship going from Nigeria to Ghana by way of Europe first, because basically nobody here owns vessels. They set up these Border Information Centers to finally track all the unofficial trade that happens in border towns, trying to formalize it. Akutah says everyone is playing along with the new rules because investors hate uncertainty, and a lot of service providers registered voluntarily. The whole point of their compliance unit is to settle fights quickly before they become crazy expensive court cases involving demurrage fees. He finished by saying that other African countries are building up their ports fast, and everyone expects Nigeria to lead, but that is not happening yet, so they need to get these laws and infrastructure sorted immediately. [/QUOTE]

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