Chairman/CEO of the Dock Management Nigeria Limited, Adegoke Moshood Salvador, has raised alarm over the security implications in leaving stevedoring services to concessionaires operating port terminals in the country.

Speaking at the MARAN Roundtable Forum, organised by the Maritime Reporters' Association of Nigeria (MARAN) in Lagos, Salvador, who was a former member of the House of Representatives, noted that allowing the concessionaires to participate in stevedoring service would expose the nation to a lot of dangers.

He argued that the concessionaires, who operate the port terminals are mainly foreigners, saying that leaving the stevedoring service also with them will give them the liberty to operate unchecked as they own the terminal as well as the ships that bring cargoes to the country.

Lamenting the loss of jobs in the stevedoring service, the Dock Management boss, who operates only Dantata jetty after Ibafon and Ibru jetties were taken away from him by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), stated that the concessioning programme of the government was not a blessing to the country especially with the rate at which thousands of people have lost their jobs.

He lamented that those in stevedoring service now are very few as a result of the port concessioning.

"The stevedoring sector is losing workers because the concessionaires have sacked their stevedores. They are now doing it by themselves so that they will not pay the actual rate as recommended by the government. We are losing workers and jobs are being lost, jobs that are suppose to increase so that we can get the people out of the street," Salvador lamented.

He noted that the International Ships and Ports Security (ISPS) Code does not however allow jetties to be concessioned because of the security implication. "Therefore, the government must put an eagle eye on the private jetties".