BusinessDay 24 May 2017

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18 BUSINESS DAY maritime Shipping Logistics Maritime e-Commerce business How pirate attacks, security concern threaten shipping activities in Eastern ports …As NIMASA moves to enhance safety of ships on Nigerian maritime domain Wednesday 24 May 2017 Stories by Uzoamaka Anagor-Ewuzie The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Eastern Zone has indentified security concern caused by activities of pirates and sea robbers as a major challenge facing seaports in the South-South region, popularly known as the Eastern ports. Abubakar Garba Umar, port manager of Rivers Port Complex, who said in a statement issued at the weekend, that ‘issue of piracy attack and ensuring safety and security on the water ways’ are the immediate responsibilities of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), also pointed to the need to increase security patrol of the water ways leading the ports in the Eastern region. The port manager, who recently paid a courtesy call to the port service comptroller of NIMASA, Umar Dachia with the aim of maintaining the existing cordial relationship between both agencies, stated that constant security patrol of the waterway gives ship owners the confidence of doing business in the port without having the fear of being attacked. “The attack of pirates on ships is a serious issue that affects the patronage of the port,” Umar pointed. Commending NIMASA’s effort in enhancing trade facilitation at the port, the NPA boss observed, that since he took over as the port manager, NPA has never received any complain of delay in ship clearance from shipping agents. This, according to him, shows that NIMASA recognises the issue of trade facilitation as one of its statutory responsibility that must be handled with keen attention. The NPA boss however solicited officials of NIMASA to put the authority on the known especially as regards to change of status of shipping Hadiza Bala Usman company by NIMASA. In his response, Dachia said that NIMASA has been trying in terms of security, and this led her to previously establish partnership with the Global Vessel to provide the agency with platform for the patrol of the nation’s maritime domain, which the agency has terminated and looking for new options to ensure that the waterways are constantly in check. NIMASA also signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Nigerian Navy to patrol the water ways. Dachia promised to put his men on the right track of ensuring that whenever there is change in the documentation procedure as it covers ship clearance and operations, the Port Manager should be given first-hand information. He promised to bring up all the challenges and issues brought up by the NPA to the management of NIMASA at the headquarters. In a related development, Dakuku Peterside, the director general of the NIMASA has assured Nigerians and the international maritime community that the Federal Government is leaving no stone unturned in tackling the menace of piracy and other illicit crimes on the nation’s territorial waters. He disclosed that the Federal Government recently approved for the procurement of three helicopters and 12 fast intervention vessels to ensure coastal and aerial surveillance as well as constant patrol of the Nigerian maritime domain by the Nigerian Navy and the NIMASA team. Stating that piracy was not on the increase in the Nigerian waters and the Gulf of Guinea, Peterside noted that inter agency and regional cooperation through bilateral agreements as well as effective maritime domain awareness and strong legislation to criminalise and punish pirate, have become fundamental in addressing the challenges. Also, Abdulsalam Suleiman, director, Legal Services of NIMASA said recently in a statement issued by the agency that NIMASA is presently working with the Federal Ministry of Justice to finalise the bill and has the assurances of the National Assembly of the expeditious passage of the bill into law within the shortest possible time to strengthen Nigeria’s anti piracy crusade. Recall that as part of its commitment to fighting piracy and other maritime related crimes, the Federal Government approved the sum of $186 million for the acquisition of the above mentioned maritime security infrastructure. Osikoya says diversity, inclusion drive innovation at world’s biggest shipping firm, Maersk Group The priority attention accorded to the concept of diversity and inclusion has become critical to driving innovation at the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, Rachel Osikoya, head, Diversity and Inclusion of theMaersk Group says. “At Maersk we are focusing specifically on diversity in terms of gender, nationality and age. Generational diversity is something a lot of companies are looking at now. It is also about how you think, how you solve problems, what difference you bring to the organisation,” said Osikoya, who was in Lagos recently for a women leadership development programme. According to her, diversity is about understanding and managing differences at the workplace. “If we have the same particular set of people in an organisation, we are never going to innovate or come up with new ideas. We are going to be doing things in the same way every time and in our industry, things are changing rapidly. So, we need to have that diversity in our organisation to compete successfully,” she added. According to her, there Rachel Osikoya is need to have leaders or managers who would bring in those different ideas and enable people to be able to use that diversity for the benefit of the organisation. “The inclusion phase is how you make the diversity work. So, we see it as a competitive advantage for Maersk.” She said to increase the retention rate of women in the organisation, a new policy which allows female staff enjoy 18 weeks of maternity leave on full pay after childbirth came into effect from April 4, 2016. “The maternity policy also includes a phased reintegration to work for all onshore employees. “We are still measuring the impact of the maternity policy because it has just been a year but what we are seeing is an increase in the retention of women, which is what we want. The policy gives the mother the time to bond with the child and be ready to come back to work. Also, she observed that the Group saw that the policy will enable to retain roughly about 70 percent of females after maternity leave because 80 percent of the women that left did so in the first 12 months, which is the most critical period in retaining new mothers. “Integration back into work after a maternity leave is important and it helps to provide a little flexibility for the employee coming back,” Osikoya said. She said the Maersk Group has received positive feedback from its staff on the new maternity policy. “We have heard positive response from the female staff and even the male staff commenting on how good the maternity leave was for women. So, we had positive response from employees and a good response from our Human Resource team as well who implemented the policy across the 130 countries,” she added. SIFAX Haulage, SAHCOL get award for outstanding service delivery SIFAX Haulage and Logistics Limited and the Skyway Aviation Handling Company Limited (SAHCOL), of the SI- FAX Group, have received two major recognitions for delivery outstanding services in the nation’s transport sector. SIFAX Haulage and Logistics Limited received ‘the Haulage & Logistics Company of the Year’ while SAHCOL clinched ‘the Aviation Handling Company of the Year’ at the fifth Nigeria Transport Awards held in Lagos. The award, Frank Kintum, editor-in-chief of Transport Day Newspaper said, was in recognition of the SIFAX contribution to the development of the industry, which is expected to spur competition and excellence service delivery in the sector. Henry Ajetunmobi, executive director of SIFAX Haulage said the award was in recognition of the hard work and innovation the company’s management and staffs have put in over the last one year. “The company has worked assiduously over the years to build a haulage company that is reliable, efficient and customer-focused. Our driving force is the desire to surpass the expectations of our client, no matter how high they are,” he added. While appreciating the organisers for the award, Basil Agboarumi, general manager, Corporate Communication of SAHCOL assured that the company would strive to maintain the high standards that it has set for itself. The Nigeria Transport Awards is an annual event designed to reward deserving companies that have shown diligence, innovation and excellence in the logistics industry. L-R: Afolasade Ekundayo, client relationship officer; Olusola Ajayi, assistant general manager; Henry Ajetunmobi (rtd), executive director, all of SIFAX Haulage and Logistics; Basil Agboarumi, general manager, Corporate Communications, Skyway Aviation Handling Company of Nigeria (SAHCOL), a subsidiary of SIFAX Group and Olumuyiwa Akande, corporate affairs manager, SIFAX Group at the 5th Nigeria Transport Awards held in Lagos recently.
Wednesday 24 May 2017 C002D5556 BUSINESS DAY 19 E-mail: ag@businessdayonline.com AGRIC BUSINESS 6 cocoa processors owe Nigerian banks N50bn …cocoa value addition on the decline Stories by JOSEPHINE OKOJIE Nigeria’s cocoa processing industry has been choked by a N50 billion debt it owed commercial banks operators in the country. This has led to a decline in the country’s value addition in recent years and resulting to a $2 billion annual loss, industry sources say. Key players in the industry who spoke with BusinessDay said unless there is a well-defined policy for processing of agricultural commodities, the country would continue to exports it jobs and lose revenue it would have generated through value addition. “Most of the indigenous cocoa processors are really under the heavy weight of debt and that why none is operating at full capacity today. The total debt in the industry today is not less that N50billipn between six processors,” said Akin Olusuyi, chairman, Cocoa Processors Association of Nigeria (COPAN) during a press briefing with journalists in Lagos recently. “We have a total of eight cocoa processing firms in the country with only 2 functional. The two that are functional now are foreigner owned. There is no indigenous processor that is functioning now as we speak,” said Olusuyi who is also the chief executive officer of Ile Oluji Nigeria Limited. He stated that the total installed capacity of cocoa processing plants in the country is 270,000 metric tonnes but cumulatively, the industry is operating below 15 percent capacity currently. Nigeria, world’s fourth largest cocoa producer and supplier, saw the value of its global supply decline by 23.4 percent from 248,000 metric tonnes in 2014 to 190,000 tonnes in 2015, according to the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) in its latest data on global production. According to COPAN, the debt incurred by the industry was as a result of the harsh operating environment in the country and the inability to secure loans at single digit interest rate. “An average borrowing cost to any cocoa processors by any bank in the country is 25 percent interest rate, when processors in Ivory Coast and Ghana obtain loans at single digit. How can we be competitive?” asked Akin Laoye, executive director, FTN Cocoa Processors PLC. “We are yet to access the EEG that was designed to cushion structural misalignment in our economy since 2013. Since last year we have been given approval by NEXIM and our banks but we are yet to get it,” said Laoye. According to Olusuyi who was earlier quoted, the government has failed to provide a clear cut policy direction as to what it intends to do in terms of industrialising the economy through processing of agro commodities. “This why our agriculture has remained at the rudimentary stage because the active players that take the commodity from the farmers do not add any value by processing it,” he added. He noted that Nigeria cannot develop without developing agriculture to include processing. “The direction to economic growth is industrialisation and not the exporting of raw agric commodities,” he further stated. Similarly, another challenge facing the sector is the crisis rocking the 65,000 capacity Multritrex Integrated, the country’s largest cocoa processor, which has cut industry production by over 26 percent, according to calculations. Multritrex was shut down by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMNCON) over N5 billion debt. The company officials told BusinessDay that though firm had been handed over to a new receivership, production was at the peripheral level. “Since AMCON took over Multitrex Foods, nothing meaningful has been achieved. The best option is to work out a plan so that the business can continue,” Olusuyi said. On the global scale, cocoa grinding has been on the increase. “The grindings picture worldwide for the first quarter of the current cocoa season reflected a considerable increase, with Asian grindings data showing a 19.2 percent year-on-year increase to 177,450 tonnes,” data from ICCO latest cocoa monthly report show. Abx World launches solar powered farmers’ mart …to address postharvest loss Abx World Nigeria Limited, a working partner of the Global Good Agricultural Practice (GAP), has launched a solar powered farmers’ mart equipped with freezers and refrigerator with embedded interactive mobile application using the Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. The farmers’ mart will revolutionalise the country’s agricultural supply chain and address the issue of postharvest losses in fresh fruits and vegetables. The solar powered mart which is called the Abxworld Farmers Market can be strategically deployed in streets across the country. John Okakpu, managing director and chief executive officer, ABX World, disclosed this to journalist during the Food West Africa event held in Lagos recently. He stated that the project which will soon enter large scale implementations is a good initiative to create a vibrant IoT ecosystem full of opportunities and benefits for farmers and end users. The project pioneers have provided insights into a manifold of dimensions that are relevant for medium-term market deployment, such as economic conditions, technical feasibility, farmer adoption, industrial value for key players, consumers and society expectations, and scalability of the solutions to meet immediate environmental sanitation. According to Okakpu, with 82 million hectares of arable and over 70 million estimated farmers in the country, Nigeria has no reason for the high rate of unemployment. “The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) report that one third (1/3) of the global agricultural produce which roughly stands at an estimated 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted annually and mainly because such foods are simply not available at the locations where they are badly needed. We want to ensure this is eliminated in Nigeria through abxworld’s famers’ market,” he said. “Through the app integrated to the freezer and refrigerator it will enable easy for monitoring. There are a number of innovations and opportunities this project will create, particularly in creating employment. Nigeria has no reason being poor,” Okakpu added. The managing director assured that states will also benefit from the scheme as they are targeting 50-100 tons per state daily when fully implemented. “We will also keep the state clean through the program under Global GAP,” he said, adding that the farmers’ market can easily be mounted and dismounted at any location while the farm products are hygienically packaged for the consumer. Okakpu further charged Government at different levels to speed up processes for training of local farmers in line with modern trends while assisting them to export their products. This, he said, is a sure way to grow the economy especially the foreign exchange market.
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BusinessDay 24 May 2017

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