The President of League of Maritime Editors who is also the Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of South South International Magazine and South-South Online as well as the Publicity Secretary of Association of Communications Scholars and Professionals of Nigeria, Ovie Edomi, has commended the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) for terminating its pilotage contract with Intels Nigeria Limited (INL).

Ovie Edomi, President, League of Maritime Editors

Edomi described NPA, an agency of the Federal Government under the Ministry of Transport as the new model for e-Governance in Nigeria. According to him: “The agreement which  Intels has with NPA allowed INTELs  to enjoy monopoly in the handling of oil and gas cargoes in Nigeria but beyond that, Intels has collected revenue on behalf of NPA in the 17years, in total violation of  Sections 80(1), 162(1) and (10) of the constitution. We questioned some of the concession agreements even with the freedom of information act but nothing was done. It took a patriotic Managing Director of NPA to insist on total compliance with the Federal Government’s Treasury Single Account policy as a way of eradicating under declaration of what was collected or closing revenue leakages.”

Edomi further noted that rather than politicise the contract and dwell on job loss, the nation and her citizenry that are barely coming out of recession should commend the managing director of NPA, while urging the lawmakers to realise that if other companies take over the contract, it is still Nigerians that will be employed to do the job and not foreigners. So Nigerians should not be blackmailed into believing that thousands of jobs will be lost by the termination of the contract.

He noted that more jobs will be created if other companies take over the contract. Besides he stated that since government commenced the implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy. The policy has introduced transparency and reduced corruption in the entire public service.

According to him: “There is nowhere in the civilised world where  transparency is taken serious that an authority of the state does not  know  the actual revenue that it generates for the federal system until the revenue collecting outfit says the amount at the point of sharing. There is no doubt that every decent Nigerian is against under declaration of revenue collection by any agency working for government”