The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has recently revealed that between January to June of 2020, the operator of the controversial Secure Anchorage Area (SAA); Ocean Marine Solutions Limited (OMSL) generated $17million (N8.5bn), but that the revenue was not remitted into the coffers of the Federal Government.
The Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala-Usman, stated these facts during a television programme.
Usman lamented that these monies collected by OMSL are not in the interest of Nigerian citizens, even as she assured that NPA would not rest on its oars until the activities of the firm are dismantled on Nigerian waters.
The OMSL reportedly collects $2,500 per day from vessels calling at Nigerian waters in order to provide security for them at a location mapped out on the waterways and described as the “Secure Anchorage Area.”
Speaking on the TV programme, Hadiza stated that, “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 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 the water. It is the responsibility of the government, through the Navy and NIMASA to secure at zero cost to the owners.
“Just between January and July this year, OMSL received $17m in revenue for securing vessels and none of those revenues went to the coffers of the Federal Government.”
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Hadiza, however, disclosed that NPA generated a whopping N291bn as revenue between January to October 2020. She, however, added that there was a shortfall in the revenue compared to what was generated in the corresponding period of 2019, which stood at N298bn.
“Despite the challenges within the economy, the Nigerian ports between the period of January to October was able to raise 291bn as revenue. In 2019, we raised 298bn between January to December. You can see the differential is marginal.
“In November-December, we may be able to meet up to what we made in 2019 or we may not. There was a reduction but it was not huge in terms of revenue,” the NPA MD added.
The NPA boss also said port operations suffered downtime of two days after recent attacks on port headquarters.
While reacting on the recent Endsars protest hijacked by hoodlums, Hadiza said, “Regarding our operations, we had a downtime of two days sorting internet services provisions for payment. We were up after 48 hours to continue operations.
“The offices torched were corporate and strategic communication and some part of the audit department where the windows got burnt but we didn’t lose any documents.
“On one side, we look at it as random hoodlums, on the other hand, we also have a lot of questions to answer like why your office? However, seven people have been arrested and we have CCTV footage of the attack.”
N8.5bn H1 revenue collected by OMSL not remitted to FG ― NPA