Gilbert Ekugbe
The enlarged Presidential Port Standing Task Team (PSTT) yesterday vowed to duly address all port-related issues within the port environment in less than 30 days.
The National Coordinator, Port Standing Task Team (PSTT), Moses Fadipe, stated this on the sidelines of the first meeting of the enlarged Presidential PSTT in Lagos.
According to him, effective from April 3, 2023, PSTT would up its ante to bring about a tremendous change in the area of touting in the country’s port corridors.
Meanwhile, Fadipe stated that since the inauguration of the PSTT, vessel owners in the country have saved over N5.4 billion
He pointed out that the task team’s mandate is strictly to carry out necessary anti-corruption activities that would help dismantle corruption network fueling logjam within the ports.
Fadipe added: “You have heard all the stakeholders complaining about touts everywhere, and you have equally heard that it is a task for all, but we are assuring everyone that by next week, you will see us moving out to bring tremendous change in the area of touting in our port corridors.”
He, however, stated that the meeting was a good platform to deliberate upon a subject of mutual interest with its esteemed stakeholders, stressing that knowing the problems bedeviling the sector, it is important to consciously partake in offering effective and sustainable solutions in partnerships like this.
“I am confident that the meeting whose objective is to review our activities in 2022 and strategise for 2023 would come up with strong resolutions that will assist us going forward,” he said.
To address the challenge, he noted that the Federal Ministry of Transportation had on April 14, 2022, flagged off the ‘Operation Free the Ports Corridors’ to remove all illegal checkpoints and shanties along the corridors, saying this was aimed at eliminating traffic gridlocks and corrupt practices that have become impediments, to ease of doing business.
Fadipe pointed out that in view of the foregoing, there is a pointer that its activities are a positive barometer of showing PSTT’s contribution to the actualisation of the objectives of the Executive Order 001 on the ease of doing business in Nigeria as envisioned through the NPPM which is a focused action plan that is expected to be one of the key indicators for the effective implementation of EO1 in the port sector.
“These successes in our operations were intended to be sustained, and so the reason we are gathered here today is to chart new strategy of consolidating and surpassing our previous gains,” he added.
