NATIONAL TRANSPORT COMMISSION: GBEMISOLA SARAKI’S RECIPE 

The Nigerian maritime industry is a beehive. This undoubtedly explains the reason behind the establishment of a number of government agencies dedicated solely to the industry. There is the National Inland Waterways Authority; NIWA, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency; NIMASA, the Nigerian Ports Authority; NPA, and few others charged with the responsibility of promoting the growth and development of the nation’s maritime industry. This is consistent with the standards and practices obtainable in other developed maritime nations. However, according to a report in THIS DAY of Friday June 27 2008, the Senate Committee on Marine Transport, which has Senator Gbemisola Saraki as its chairperson, has expressed dismay at conflicts arising from the duplication of functions amongst agencies within the industry. Evidently on many occasions, not a few officials of these parastatals in the Ministry of Transport had clashed over their overlapping functions. This development though is not out of place, considering the political dispensation under which some of these agencies and authorities were established.

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The Senate Committee on Marine Transport noted that there is no discernible policy framework to deliver the objectives for which the agencies were created. In other words there is no economic regulatory framework for the provision of services and movement of people and goods in the transport sector. In a bid to curb the overlapping functions of these agencies, the committee, according to THIS DAY, has commenced the process of review of the extant laws establishing the implementing agencies with a view to streamlining their functions. To further address these anomalies and ensure that the maritime industry is where it ought to be in the comity of maritime nations, Senator Gbemisola Saraki, according to the report, has sponsored a bill to establish a body called the National Transport Commission; NTC.

Controlling the future requires proper legislation. Although Visionaries have always linked the success of their ideas and inventions to careful planning and expertise, they still cannot rule out the role of legislation in providing a soft landing pad for these ideas. Legislation usually provides a legal framework for steering the course of innovative ideas and inventions because, in most cases, visions turn out to be wide of the mark either because new inventions fail or more interestingly because they succeed in unforeseen ways.

Cases abound in Nigeria of a good number of establishments and technologies that in spite of their commendable performances are still being discredited probably because both the initiators and assessors never understood the dynamics of emergent innovations, or simply because the explicit functions of these establishments were not properly legislated on.

For instance, the dream of a future in which standard gauge railway tracks would criss-cross the length and breadth of Nigeria, banishing the era of substandard transport facilities and pushing the country up the motorization ladder emerged in the early 20 th century and has persisted ever since. After the development of some major rail lines that ran from the North to the South and the procurement of railway engines and wagons, optimism grew that the long-awaited road transport alternative was about to take off. Although the rail lines and the wagons still exist, Nigerians still do not believe we have a functional railway system since the dependence on the road mode has continued to be on the rise. Nigerians are still expecting the railways of the 20 th century to metamorphose into modern day railways that compete with the airlines in terms of speed and service delivery. Incidentally, this expectation is not a mere wish as developments in the railways of Europe and America has shown. But the development of railways contributed to the growth of many towns that ultimately became large industrial and commercial Cities such as Kano, Kaduna, Jos, Osogbo, Ibadan, Lagos, Enugu, and Port Harcourt. It also helped develop the early potentials of tourism. The railway idea did not succeed just as the Visionaries imagined but it is clear the railways did well.

Something similar is going on in the Road Transport System. At present the system has been perceived as the most hapless yet consistent transport mode in Nigeria. At the outset, the infrastructural developers envisioned superhighways that would link the major towns and cities, and modern carrying units that would convey both passenger and freight safely and comfortably within and beyond our national frontiers. Today, technically speaking, thousands of kilometers of bituminous roads have been built, a colourful cast of entrepreneurs has emerged, and countless Vehicles of diverse makes, shapes, sizes, and flaws have been procured. Besides, the advent of the motor car in the country has espoused speedy development of allied industries like the Road Construction Companies, Vehicle Assembly Plants, Spare Parts Fabrication Industries, Vehicle Maintenance Outfits, Vehicle Sales Outlets, Transport Management Institutions, and many more. Just because the road transport technology is developing in unexpected ways does not mean it has failed, however.

Visionaries get things wrong because they concentrate so much on the technology, and fail to take into account the way it is shaped by social, political and economic forces as it spreads. All over the world in recent years, the focus of visionary transport reforms has shifted toward regulatory innovations and transport efficiency improvements. A situation like ours where parastatals in the maritime industry engage in conflict and unnecessary feuding over overlapping functions therefore calls for earnest legislative exercise to ensure that an appropriate regulatory body is established. The idea of a National transport commission; NTC is exceptionally interesting and is, at moment, the best option provided its functions would be fully articulated and backed up by proper legislation.

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The transport sector is an integrated system where the Sea, the Rail, the Road, and the Air complement each other in service delivery. The NTC is therefore expected to be an independent body providing regulatory services for the entire system. It will work in partnership with the government, transport agencies, and the Police to develop practical transport reforms. Ultimately the establishment of the NTC will mark a departure from the contrived over-dependence on the bureaucracy of the Ministry of Transport.

In arresting the in-fighting and duplication of functions among government agencies in the maritime industry, the NTC is billed to harmonise their roles and responsibilities. Besides the arbitrator role of the NTC, the commission is also expected to develop internationally consistent reforms, which must give consideration to impacts on infrastructure and operational efficiency of the interacting transport modes within the system.

The role of Senator Saraki and her committee in the on-going port reforms has been commendable so far. It is expected that the arrival of the NTC will finally put to rest the endless squabble between government agencies in marine transport sector and also address other pressing issues that dot the entire transport landscape of Nigeria. Above all the concept of the NTC is a robust body of work that is needed to ensure the benefits of previous reforms are not dissipated.

 

Chigozie Chikere

Traffic Data Analyst,

7 Samuel Ladoke Akintola Boulevard,

Garki II, Abuja.

E-mail: grandefather@yahoo.com