Citing reports, the federal government has over the years lost billions of naira in lease agreements entered into between the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and some of its concessionaires.
The exact figure is, however, yet to be arrived at as the new NPA management, led by Ms Hadiza Bala Usman, is still in the process of reviewing the agreements.
The review, it was gathered, became necessary after preliminary investigation by the new management revealed that one of the primary areas of leakage is the lease agreements signed by the NPA with its concessionaires.
This is in line with the focus of the leadership, which is to plug revenue leakages and enhance collection. It was also discovered that the agency’s account had not been audited for three years (2013 to 2015), a situation that had denied the agency its share of the ports development levy from the Federal Ministry of Finance.
A source privy to the issue cited an instance of the Continental Shipyard lease agreement which expired seven years ago (2009), but had not been renewed or renegotiated while business continued, thereby becoming a revenue drainpipe for the federal government. There is also the case of the Lagos Deep Sea Port which agreement was reviewed after the federal government put in more money but a new shareholding formula was not defined in the new agreement.
“Some of the service agreements are not profitable to the government at all. How do you explain that the government signed the lease agreements with these private companies but still provides personnel and facilities for them to function, in addition to paying for the services? Between 2013 and 2014, government lost $38 million to such skewed agreements,” the source stated.
It was also gathered that in the course of going through the books, the Usman-led management uncovered instances whereby the NPA signed service agreements with private organisations, NPA’s staff and facilities were used and the agency still paid for such services.
This is in addition to the fact that the agreements were drafted by lawyers of the private companies, who inserted clauses which make it near impossible to terminate them.
The source gathered that the official under whose purview those agreements were entered into, said the agreements were drafted, purportedly by the private entities, and that they (staff members) were only mandated to sign them on behalf of the federal government.
The new management, our source said, had already began the review process and was in the process of bringing together a consortium of lawyers to look through the agreements to see where reviews had to be made.
“Many of NPA’s tariff regimes are also not beneficial to the government. I’m aware that the management is in the process of bringing consultants who will set up pricing models in line with international best practices,” the source added.
Our source further disclosed that the new management, on assumption of office, met a huge pile of debts in the tune of $388 million, owed the NPA by terminal operators, including $2 million owed by a firm owned by a former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
On the issue of the 25-year port development plan, which report was supposed to be concluded in nine months, but which process had been ongoing for about four years, the source gathered that the new management had succeeded in getting a draft report since it came on board, which would be presented soon.
“NPA has a lot of requests to build ports and the master plan is supposed to guide such requests. The draft report is ready and will be presented in no distant time.”
On the issue of the rumoured retrenchment in the NPA, our source explained that contrary to the reports, what the NPA management planned to do was to redeploy staff to areas where they would be relevant, pointing out that the rumours were the handiwork of those who were jittery over the reforms the management was planning.
“NPA is top heavy. There are many managers and other lower cadre staff who do nothing because those at the top have rendered them redundant.
“In the Abuja liaison office for instance, which is on one floor of a building, there are 57 staff and 17 of them are security men. So you can see why we need to move people around to areas where they’ll add value,” the source added.
To check operational inefficiencies, and improve ease of doing business, the source gathered that the new NPA leadership planned to reduce the number of agencies at the ports.
“The Nigeria Customs Service for instance, has five units through which those who do business at the ports must pass. This has to be reduced to improve operational efficiency.”
Source: Leadership
