Controversy trails lease of Waziri jetty to NIPCO as PPDOA seeks FG’s intervention
The Petroleum Product Depot Owners Association (PPDOA) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari, Rotimi Amaechi, Minister of Transport and Senate Committees on Marine Transport including Jetties to intervene on the controversy trailing the lease of the contentious Waziri Jetty and its adjourning land entered into by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) with NIPCO at the expense of five other local firms.
The controversial lease was reported to have been entered into in 2013 by NPA despite the standing court order restricting it from leasing the jetty and its adjourning land until court says otherwise, thus the violation of court order by NPA.
Waziri Jetty and its adjourning land are located off Old Dock yard road, Apapa and it has six companies that operate and deliver petroleum products through it as common users and they include A-Z Petroleum, Energy Destination, Hensmor, G-Eurafric, Aiteo including NIPCO PLC.
The jetty and it adjourning land, which has been a subject of vigorous legal tussle in the last eight years, will result to more legal battle that may cripple businesses of the operators as it was recently reported that NPA leased the adjourning land at Waziri jetty to NIPCO.
“We appeal to all the authorities concern particularly Mr President to call NPA, NIPCO and PPDOA to a round table and determine why NPA would grant a lease of Waziri jetty to a foreign firm against the interest of four indigenous companies that indicated interest as a group. According to the provisions of Local Content, NPA ought to have given the four locally owned companies first right of refusal,” said Patricia Okereke, executive secretary, PPDOA at a press conference in Lagos at the weekend.
According to her, PPDOA want a level playing field to do their business and compete fairly but granting lease of that strip of land to NIPCO, poses huge threat to their businesses, investment etc. “Waziri jetty has an adjourning land, where all the operators’ porter cabins that warehouse their apparatus for discharging of vessels are sited.”
“On December 1, 2015 NPA evacuated our cabins from the land and as we speak, our cabins are still at large. And we have it on good authority that NIPCO is building a Lube bay on that land. We have seen tanks, containers and pipes that are buried for lube-bay. They do not operate during the day but at night and we learnt that the firm has joined major marketers,” she alleged.
Continuing, she said: “We are currently processing contempt of court proceeding and the case is slated for March 2016 but we deemed it fit to cry out to the government to stop further action on the jetty.”
Recall that in 2007, the jetty was closed down by NPA without notice to the users and after, we got a court injunction restricting NPA management from interfering with our business and from entering into any lease agreement until the final determination of the matter in court, the initial lease to NIPCO was nullified.
After the 2007 legal tussle, all the users of the jetty went further to form Petroleum Product Depot Owners Association (PPDOA) that represents the interest of all the operators, and we also approached NPA as group to grant the association lease of jetty.
“Despite the standing court order, few weeks ago, we were given a directive by Apapa port manager to immediately remove our porter cabins from the jetty for security reasons owing to the fact that the cabins were unidentified but we went further to name the cabins, which NPA ignored and went further to evacuate our cabins on December 1, 2015,” Okereke said.
According to NPA, the jetty belongs to NIPCO, which also has a lease of the adjourning land. Further investigation shows that NPA entered into another lease agreement with NIPCO in 2013 in violation to the standing court order and it allows NIPCO ownership of the adjourning land to the jetty.
Okereke however, made it clear that the standing court injunction states that the adjourning land, which was lease to NIPCO is part and parcel of Waziri jetty, and this restrict NIPCO from obtaining a lease of the adjourning land on the ground that it is separate from the jetty.
Uzoamaka Anagor-Ewuzie