By Dele Fanimo

The dockworkers, under the aegis of Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN), Dockworkers Branch, will be going into the Abuja meeting today to seek appropriate definition of members' status in the on-going port reforms programme.

Besides, the union would be asking for a N586,000 pay-off for each of the 6,000 dockworkers to be affected by the concessioning exercise.

President of the dockworkers branch of MWUN, Mr. Anthony Emmanuel, at a press briefing in Lagos yesterday put the number of registered dockworkers at 12,000, while 6,000 more are unregistered. But government, through its privatisation agency, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), had insisted that dockworkers were not bonafide workers of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).

While the BPE had negotiated an exit package for the NPA workers to be affected by the concessioning exercise, there had not been any mention of their dockworkers counterparts.

The implication of this, according to Emmanuel, is that at the end of the port reforms dockworkers who lose their jobs will go home empty handed.

Emmanuel said the union took exception to this and was ready to disrupt activities at the ports beginning from tomorrow if the government failed to accede to their demands.

According to him, until the issue of members' status as legal employees is settled and government signs an agreement to pay a minimum of N586,000 to each dockworker who loses his job, there cannot be any port for any concessionaire to take over.

The union chief decried government's plan to deduct seven per cent of NPA staff entitlements to pay off dockworkers, saying that would not solve the problem.

Emmanuel also blamed the dockworkers' woes on the incumbent Director General of the NPA, Mr. Adebayo Salami, whom he accused of indifference to their plight.

According to him, having served for over 30 years in the ports and given his closeness to dockworkers, it was morally incumbent on Sarumi to plead the cause of the dockworkers.

He said much as the dockworkers were not averse to the ports reforms, the union would not fold its arms and allow government to throw out its members who had served for decades without severance entitlements.

Emmanuel disclosed that the union was only asking for a paltry N3 billion out of the over N50 billion initial instalment paid by concessionaires to the government.

He, however, assured that the shut-down would be carried out in a non-violent manner under the watchful eyes of a taskforce raised by the union.