NPA Finally Relieved of Over N900million Annual Salary Of Stevedoring Contractors Staff

The Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA has finally got ministerial relief from making further payments to the dockworkers.

This is coming after a decade of paying billions of naira as wages and allowances of un-ascertained number of tally clerks and on-board security engaged by Stevedoring companies on vessels berthing in the nation’s ports.

It was learnt that the relief came to the NPA as the minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, during a meeting with representatives of the NPA, top ministry officials, port concessionaires, Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) and stevedoring companies formally approved NPA’s plan to terminate relationship with stevedoring contractors handling the tally clerks and on-board security.

This implies that a relief of over N900 million is paid to unverified 5,000 dockworkers annually.

The NPA had in November 2015, indicated that it would pull out from paying the wages of tally clerks as it was no longer in the business of managing the seaports.

Since port concession in 2006, the dockworkers have been in the habit of holding the NPA to ransom over the non-payment of their wages, embarking and threatening to embark on industrial action to cripple the activities of the ports.

Under the current port management model, the NPA maintains the landlord status, providing and maintaining common user seaport infrastructure, such as the channels, buoys and providing technical regulation, with port concessionaires in direct commercial management of the ports.

However, the Minister, at the meeting, however, instructed the NPA to pay the affected stevedoring companies all outstanding money due to them in the next two weeks.