Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Managing Director, Hadiza Bala Usman has made some shocking revelations.
She said; “Some private companies lay claim to signed agreements which are against regulatory obligations. The ports authority challenged the fees collected by Ocean Marine Solutions Limited (OMSL), a maritime security company, for securing vessels on Nigerian waters.”
“The maritime company received $17 million between January and July 2020 of which no share was remitted to the federal government.”
“The pushback has to do with corruption fighting back when you institute reforms that seek to prioritise government’s interests and recognise that the citizens and Nigeria as a country is a priority over private companies that have signed some agreements that are not in compliance with regulatory obligations. That is a huge pushback that I have received.”
“On OMSL, it is the secure anchorage area where vessels are made to pay for being secured within the Nigerian ports. And this started in 2013 to provide that platform in partnership with the Nigerian Navy.”
“Fast forward to 2017, we felt that it wasn’t necessary for people to be paying money to secure their vessels on waters. It is the responsibility of the government through Navy and NIMASA to secure at zero cost to the owners.”
“Just between January and July, OMSL received $17 million in revenue for securing vessels and none of those revenues went to the coffers of the federal government.”
“We have directed the cancelling of the secure anchorage and we are having discussions with the vice-president on concluding that. We have given the directive to dismantle because it completely beats my mind how you can justify that activity.”
“On Intels (a logistics and facilities services provider in the maritime and oil and gas sectors), we have the issue of non-compliance with treasury single account (TSA). They realise that have to comply and after a lot of pushbacks they complied.”
“Now their contractual relationship with us on service boats has expired but they have gone to court to request for them to remain as the first-party provider which is ridiculous.”
“Despite the Coronavirus pandemic, the NPA generated N291 billion as revenue between January and October 2020. N298 billion was the total revenue generated from January to December 2019.”