An agreement has been reached between the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) and the Ghana Shippers Authority (GSA) towards protecting shippers and trade promotion in Africa.
This was told disclosed to newsmen on Wednesday by the Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer of NSC, Hassan Bello, stressing that the collaboration would enable them to do more for the region.
Bello said the collaboration would ensure efficiency in service delivery and enable both countries export their goods and earn foreign exchange without hindrances.
“The most important thing is that we have to unite the consumers of shipping services either by advocacy or regulation. We must ensure that there is equilibrium, there is a balance, we must ensure there is a level playing field.
“Our economies must not be strangulated; we have to wean ourselves from mono economy of the oil business and look at an alternative or an option.
“And there is no more promising alternative than the shipping or Transport industry and that is why shippers’ council always played roles at every stage of economic revolution of not only Africa but the World,” Bello said.
The NSC boss said it was important for the shippers’ regulators to ensure the shippers made profit to enable them employ the youths.
He said: ”Employment, more than infrastructure, is key to the growth of our various economies.”
In the meantime, the Chief Executive Officer of GSA, Benonita Bismarck, assured the NSC of the authority’s readiness to collaborate with Nigeria.
Bismarck noted that Africa Shippers’ Council had a role to protect Africa trade and Ghana will work with Nigeria to achieve that.
“In order to remain relevant, we have to be proactive and ensure that whatever needs to be done to ensure that competition is seen but there is no arbitrariness, we have to do it.
“We need to work together to see where we can support one another to be able to stand tall,’’ she said.
The GSA boss said since the establishment of GSA in 1974, it had become necessary to change the framework to reflect the current realities.
She added that Ghana would learn from the ways NSC reshaped its laws to reflect current realities.
Recall that both countries have been in conflict especially with Nigerian traders in Ghana lamenting bad treatments by locals. This led to the Nigerian government evacuating most of the traders back to the country with several meetings held to resolve the issue.
