The Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria has expressed its displeasure with the non-compliance of International Oil Companies to the Stevedoring regulations issued by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency.
Stevedoring refers to the act of loading or offloading cargo to and/or from a ship.
In a statement titled ‘Continued breach of extant stevedore regulations by the International Oil Companies’, the MWUN said the IOCs had refused NIMASA registered stevedores and dockworkers access to earn their wages while replacing them with foreigners, thereby shunning local content laws.
The statement signed by the president-general of the union, Adeyanju Adewale, and his secretary-general, Felix Akingboye, issued a seven-day ultimatum to the Federal Government, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the Nigerian Ports Authority and NIMASA starting Friday to get the IOCs to comply with the statutory regulations.
The union warned that failure of the Federal Government and its agencies to caution the IOCs on or before the expiration of the seven-day ultimatum would lead to mass strike actions at the ports, terminals, jetties and other cargo handling locations in the country.
