The Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has revealed that there is no Presidential directive asking the agency to leave the seaports.
This is even as the agency explained that it is ready to comply with the Executive Order of the Federal Government on the Ease of Doing Business.
Speaking to the Nigerian Tribune exclusively, a senior staff of SON who declined not to have her name in print explained that findings by the agency at the Presidency showed that there was no recent directive asking the agency to leave the ports.
According to her, “There is no new directive that SON should leave the ports. The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) boss was just reiterating what former Minister of Finance, Okonjo Iweala Ideals directed in 2011/2012.
“This new Executive Order, SON was key to it. We have submitted reports on how to actualise the Ease of Doing Business. But we decided to keep quiet so that it does not look as if government is contradicting itself.
“There is nowhere in the Executive Order that SON was asked to leave the ports. I have the document and can forward it to you. What the Executive Order asked was that all agencies should go and harmonise in-order to achieve 24 hours cargo clearance at the ports. That is what is stated in the Executive Order. A committee was set up to actualise that, and SON is even part of that committee. The committee has up to six months to submit its report.
“What the NPA boss read was a directive that had been subsisting since 2011/2012. She is a new person, that was why she read what had been there for long. What she said was not part of the Executive Order that was handed out by the Acting Presidency.
“There is no new order or directive asking us to leave the ports. We have gone to the Presidency level to enquire, there is no new order. The Executive Order did not ask SON to leave the ports.
“It is just that we felt it will look like a government contradicting itself, that was why we decided to keep quiet after news of our port eviction became awash in all newspapers. There is no new order asking us to leave the ports. What was read was Okonjo-Iweala’s directive of 2011/2012.
“When Okonjo Iweala asked us to leave the ports, she said we can come to do examination on cargoes that belong to us. We are in Customs NICIS. We monitor all cargoes in the ports from our office on Burma Road.
“From our office on Burma Road, we easily know our cargoes and go in to do examinations. On the Customs NICIS, if you type a container number that belongs to us, it will show that it is our container. We don’t need to be inside the ports to do our jobs, but what I am telling you is that the Executive Order did not ask SON to leave the ports.”
During a stakeholders meeting, the NPA MD, Hadiza Bala Usman had listed six agencies allowed in the ports which included NPA, NIMASA, DSS, Quarantine Services, Customs, Port Health and Police. However, the NDLEA was later admitted to the list of numbers of agencies allowed to operate from the ports, increasing the total numbers of agencies to eight.
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