The Nigeria Ports Authority is, undoubtedly, a house of sleaze. A visit to the Ports will convince you. From the physical environment to the procedural module, things are wacky. The road leading to the Ports is any eloquent admission that Nigeria is a thoroughly sick country.<\/p>\n
It is also acknowledgement that we have had a long run of ill-luck in leadership. Pray, tell me, how a nation can allow the most important road in Nigeria to get to such a sorry state? The economic importance of the Apapa Express road cannot be quantified. The Nation racks in billions of dollars from the Ports every year, yet activities are nightmarish. It could be recalled that the concession of the Ports took place in 2006.<\/p>\n
The Federal Government earned about $1 billion from the ports concession\u2019s commencement fee alone. The government got about $4 billion from lease fee and $53 million from equipment sales. Money is not the problem with NPA but rather managerial skills and a culture of dishonesty.<\/p>\n
The reason for the concession is to achieve operational efficiency. This public\/private partnership is designed to make the NPA to oversee and monitor the affairs in the Port. There is yet to be the desired decorum despite the concession of 25 terminals to private operators.<\/p>\n
The private terminal operators are not the problem with NPA. Bureaucratic bottlenecks, corrupt practices and acute inefficiency on the part of government are to be blamed. A book published by the World Bank, written by Gael Raballand, Salim Refas, Monica Beuran and Gozde Isik rated Nigerian Ports as having the highest cargo dwell time in Sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n
The book entitled \u2018Why does Cargo Spend Weeks in Sub Saharan Africa\u2019 revealed that in sub-Saharan Africa, there is an average cargo dwell time of about 20 days, compares to 3 to 4 days in international Ports. Nothing much has changed because corruption has eaten deep into the fabrics of our Nation. But what can Hadiza Usman do? My heart goes to her. I am sure she has realized by now how dangerously evil and corrupt some people can be.<\/p>\n
The proximity to power will warp the judgment of some of her closest allies. She was always luminous and eager during her days with the #Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) Campaign-brimming with cracker barrel charm and acerbic scorn. She is now more aware of the substantive deficiencies and the habitual shading of truth of government workers. Civil servants in Nigeria are accustomed to saying things that are provably, demonstrably untrue.<\/p>\n
They are full of malice; self-serving habits and they obviously have a distant relation with truth. The job requires more of moral strength than punditry. Again, moral masculinity and high level of intelligence are still not enough to do the job. It is a job that requires team work both from the Federal Government and her fellow workers. Lighting action is just a tiny part of it. I am happy that this bright, willful young woman is of my generation.<\/p>\n
I am also impressed by her sincerity and the simplicity of her comments. Calm, soft and reserved, she looks like a woman of nobility and gentle force. She looks like the incarnation of hope but it will be the biggest surprise of my adult life if she succeeds in making a significant impact.<\/p>\n
Things are more complex and complicated in Nigeria. I am not trying to discourage her and but I am telling it like it is. It is left for Mrs. Usman to prove chronic doubters like us wrong. She should go no and shine the light of hope and change on the dingy business of governing the Ports. But one has to give her credit for approaching the job with an admirable high level of enthusiasm. According to her, one of the things she has to do to increase operational efficiency is to review the concession agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are ten years into the concession agreement with terminal operators and we believe that there is a need to review the concession agreement. We have started the procedure of reviewing the respective agreements that we have across our terminals. The terminal operators themselves are keen to have a review because there are areas that we need to look at.\u201d What she said about the World Bank ranking is instructive of how difficult and challenging her work will be. I will quote her at length: \u201cI am aware of the World Bank ranking but we are working to move our ranking higher.<\/p>\n
It is important to appreciate that some of the components that will place NPA on a particular ranking are not only the authority\u2019s (NPA) because we have other government agencies that operate within the ambit that challenge our own components. As hard as we work with other government agencies, it will be challenging to us to move up our ranking.<\/p>\n
I believe the ranking is a global ranking for the country. As agencies of government, we have to appreciate and understand the need to work together to appreciate that the success of every other agency is the success of Nigeria.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Ikechukwu Orji. Orji is a Freelance Journalist 08023624097 ikechukwuorji@yahoo.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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