Hadiza Bala Usman, managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) said on Wednesday that the authority has surpassed its revenue target in the first quarter of the year following the gradual return of business activities to Nigerian seaports.
Speaking on a live television interview on CNBC Africa, Usman said that the NPA had an attendant decline in revenue since the recession, which resulted to low business activities at port such that many oceangoing vessels exited Nigerian ports.
“We had a revenue projection of N16 billion but we were able to make N118 billion in the first quarter. Though, we had attendant decline in revenue since the recession but we are now seeing an increase in the exportation of agricultural produce since 2017 such that we had been able to surpass our revenue projection for the first quarter of 2017,” said Usman.
According to her, the NPA is working to set-up a standard operating procedure for the export of agricultural produce.
“We have also worked to see how to increase the export of agricultural produce and solid minerals in our ports and our terminal operators are keen on doing that and they have started developing special desks in their respective terminals to assist agricultural and solid minerals exporters to fast track export of their cargoes,” he added.
The NPA boss, who said that the NPA has a revenue projection of 250 billion for 2017, also stated that the authority is hopeful to attain the projected revenue, substantial amount would be dedicated to building and upgrading existing infrastructure around the ports while the remaining would go to the Federal consolidated revenue fund for national development.
To achieve our revenue target for the year, the NPA boss assured Nigerians that no new tariff would be introduced on port operators and users of port services but would retain the current tariff regime at the port.
Noting that many terminal operators in the past has increased their tariff without government approval, Usman said that the NPA would sanction any terminal operator that increased tariff on terminal handling without obtaining government approval as stipulated in the concession agreement.
“We have also gained the presidential approval to de-categorise oil and gas cargo and that approval was given to the NPA in the last two months. Oil and gas cargo does not exist anymore and all cargo would be handled across the new categorisation and we only recognise cargoes in line with the approved categorisation. And every terminal would be allowed to handle oil and gas cargo,” she added.
AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
