Shippers Council launches online portal for registration

By Temitope Adebayo
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has launched its Online Portal for the Registration of Regulated Port Service Providers and Users.
The Director of the South-South zone of NSC, Mr Glory Onojedo, who was represented by Mrs Patricia Osuma, Director of Public Relations of the Council, at Onne, Rivers state, revealed that the launching and presentation that followed, would take participants through a seamless process of registration on the electronic portal.
According to him, “As you are all aware, the port as a critical infrastructure needs to be competitive, to guard against monopoly and free for potential players to enter and exit, to for its users to enjoy the benefit of competitive pricing and efficient service delivery.
“It is against this backdrop, that the Federal Government of Nigeria, under Nigerian Shippers’ Council Act Cap N133LFN 2024 appointed the NSC as Ports Economic Regulator. The aim is to create an effective regulatory regime at Nigerian Ports for the control of tariffs, rates, charges and other related economic services.”
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Mr Onojedo further stated that the NSC in the performance of its mandate, developed and implemented a strategic implementation plan and some of the accomplishments so far include: cost moderating exercise by constant engagement with service providers to ensure that tariffs and charges are tied to services rendered, provision of guidelines for setting tariffs, rates and charges to guard against arbitrariness and ensure that the port operates competitively and promotion and development of transport infrastructure such as Inland Dry Ports (IDPs) and Vehicle Transit Areas (VTAs) to facilitate cargo delivery to hinterland destinations.
Others include the establishment of machinery for monitoring compliance with set operational standards; establishment of a compliant resolution mechanism to address and attend to complaints from service providers and users; harmonisation of tariff and charge nomenclatures to facilitate effective negotiation of tariffs, rates and charges and registration of regulated service providers and users in line with the policy of Know-Your Customer (KYC).