Dispute erupts again over Tin-can port terminal occupation

TWO years after the nation's port terminals were handed over to private concerns, the Presidency is being inundated with claims and counter-claims over alleged irregularities in the port concession process.

A party in the Tin-can Island port concessioning programme is therefore asking for a review of the process to correct the irregularities, claiming that it won the bid for Terminal C and not the present handler.

The present contest for the most controversial process that led to the final concessioning of the Tin-Can Island ports terminal is between Port and Cargo Handling Services Limited, the current terminal C handler and a subsidiary of Sifax Group, and Traffic and Terminal Management Group Limited (TTMG).

The latest contest for the terminal is coming on the heels of yet to be resolved legal tussle between the present terminal handler and two other companies at a Lagos high court.

While TTMG is claiming that it won the bid for the port terminal but was deprived of its ownership due to alleged favouritism and discrimination by public servants, Port and Cargo Handling Services Limited continued to affirm its victory during the bidding process to warrant the action by government which handed over the terminal to it last year.

The two companies have made representations to the presidency to justify their claims although it was not immediately clear if the government has started to look at the matter.

The management of TTMG in a letter to the presidency few days ago called for a comprehensive review and investigations into the process that led to the concessioning of the port terminal to unravel the truth of its claims in the interest of justice.

Onyebuchi Ukandu and Co., a law firm which wrote President Umar Yar'Adua on behalf of TTMG management, said the company won the technical and financial bid for the disputed port terminal having scored 86 per cent in technical bid and after submitting the highest financial quotations of $98.7 million to emerge the best of the companies that contended for the port terminal in 2005.

According to the company, the public servants that anchored the programme decided to pronounce Port and Cargo Handling Services which allegedly scored 84 per cent in technical bid the winner even after its alleged submission of $85.45 million as against $104 million allegedly recorded for it as financial bid.

The management of TTMG which is now asking the presidency to probe the bidding process for the terminal said Port and Cargo Handling Services Limited was given the terminal even when its foreign technical partners allegedly abandoned it before the conclusion of the port concession process.

This action, it said was not in conformity with the rules of the concessioning programme.

The law firm which wrote the open letter to the presidency on behalf of TTMG also alleged a pre-determined outcome of the concessioning exercise as the company that was eventually announced as winner, allegedly failed to pay commencement fee for the terminal as at when due.

According to the law firm, the company paid the commencement fee six months after it commenced operations contrary to the rule of the concessioning programme.

Besides, it alleged that the company has been managing the terminal without technical partners as required by the concessioning rules.

It said the technical partner, the basis of which it was declared winner, abandoned it before the commencement of operations.