“I will never call any of my agencies and recommend a contractor”
Is it true that the suspension of the former NPA has to do with the fallout from the INTELS matter and the Lagos Channel Management contract?
Did you see the letter that was approved by the president? We never ever mentioned INTELS. We never ever knew there was a crisis between INTELS and NPA. When the NPA wrote to me, I didn’t even know they were proceeding, because I wrote that you couldn’t proceed. There were two contracts that I told NPA that they couldn’t proceed with. The first one is this and the second one is the channel management. In writing, I told NPA that you are spending N57 billion a year for channel management, why not buy the equipment. Those white men don’t use white people to do this thing, they use Nigerians to do it. The difference is the equipment, which you can’t go to the market and buy. They’ll say because I am Nigerian they won’t sell to you. So buy the equipment and come and do it here.
Since 2019, they ignored me, until it was critical. That is the argument they are making now that it is too critical. We can’t afford to buy it now. Before we can finish the process to buy the equipment, it will take us two or three years. But I knew about it. I wrote to you in 2019 to say that I would not support this contract, because I thought Nigerians could do it. Now, the contract has got to N104 billion for all the channels by their bidding process. And I said I won’t send it to the cabinet, because for me, why do I have to buy that cloth in London if it is here? I said they should not renew the channel contract. Don’t forget that what most ministers like is this kind of situation, where contracts are expiring in their time. I could have just renewed it and collected some of the contract. But from day one, I said no; that we must move forward. We will save this country money. The first year, it may even be more than N57 billion to buy the equipment, so you buy the equipment, you deliver it. Let’s even say it is N90 billion, next year you will only pay salaries. To be paying N57 billion every year for 15 years, Nigeria is bleeding.
But it was alleged that you declined to take it to cabinet because you recommended two Chinese firms and the NPA turned you down.
Do you know me very well? If you know me very well, you will know that I will never call any of my agencies and recommend a contractor. Even as a governor, I didn’t call my commissioners to say they should go and give a job to somebody. Just like president Buhari gave me a free hand to run my ministry, that is the way I gave everybody a free hand to run their agencies. But do you really think as the minister in charge, they would not concede to me if I asked for two from the contracts? That must be a joke. The truth is, I was not interested but just wanted the right thing to be done. Period!
You suspended Hadiza in March and up till now, the committee has still not finished. Is the delay intentional?
I did not suspend Hadiza nor did I recommend her suspension. If you read the letter, the letter stated to the president, ‘Mr President, I am the minister for transport, I don’t know what is happening in NPA. Not one day have they reported to me or told me what is going on. Mr President, I would like to know what is going on. I want an audit.’ The president approved. From nowhere, the auditor general refused because that is his power. So I wrote the president that I no longer want an audit, I want to do what they call administrative enquiry. But let the Managing Director of NPA just step aside. So that is not suspension, in civil service they say, you are hereby suspended. And she is not under investigation. The MD of NPA, Hadiza Bala-Usma, is not under investigation; it is NPA that is being investigated.
But it has taken seven months to carry out an administrative inquiry without a report?
The panel has not finished. They are investigating five years. One year alone will take them 10 months. But have it at the back of your mind that all we are doing is going through what happened in NPA for the five years that I never knew anything about NPA.
Are you likely to recall her?
I am not the president. That is the decision for the president. I will only send the panel report to the president. If the president is convinced that she should come back, so be it. If you look at the NPA law, only the president has the powers to fire or hire. The minister doesn’t have any power to hire.
It was said that you instigated her suspension because both of you were not working well and you have just insinuated it too by saying you didn’t know what was happening in NPA.
If you know me well, I am a very busy administrator. I like smart people around me. They do all the work; I get the credit. So there is no way you will say I will be angry with the MD of NPA if she was doing her job according to the law. And the law includes the fact that you should come to the minister for approvals. There is something we are querying now in NPA, I just saw the file yesterday and I asked the permanent secretary to brief me. I don’t know if I should tell you this, but let me give you an example. We had an agreement with Lekki Deep Seaport. The permanent secretary said an unknown person went and entered into a second agreement without the knowledge of the ministry. Meanwhile, the minister doesn’t have the power for such an agreement. The right thing is to go to the cabinet. I saw it yesterday and I read it once and read it the second time. But how do you sit in an office and somebody in NPA, whoever the person is, goes to drop a second agreement with Lekki Deep Seaport? And it has to do with exclusivity.
You said NPA is being investigated and not Hadiza, yet, you reported to the president that funds were not being remitted to the federation account, even when the ED F&A, who was a key figure in the NPA management, was appointed to Act pending the outcome of the investigation. How do you even explain that away?
Why not wait till the report is out? You have a structure, where the Managing Director of NPA is in charge of most of the issues. If today the ED finance has not remitted funds, whose responsibility is it to call me? If I want to see anybody in NPA, I don’t go to Koko, all I need to do is to say, ‘Perm Sec, tell the MD of NPA to see me.’ I have friends in NIMASA, even when they come once, they raise NIMASA issues. I just tell them to go to the DG. That is the structure, just like the president does. If the president is asking everybody in transport, how will I run my ministry? So if you say I did not hold Koko responsible, there are two things that will happen: I am holding NPA responsible for not remitting funds, whoever is in charge should tell me who is not doing their job. If the panel says Koko didn’t do his job, then, he will go.
Even at that, it still doesn’t smell nice that Koko is the acting MD when a panel is investigating NPA at a time he was the ED finance. Does it?
The management of NPA was not dissolved. I don’t have such powers. Only the president can dissolve the management and board.
Recently, you said Nigeria was the only country in the world where ship owners have no ship and the ship owners have replied you. They said you didn’t know what you were saying. But what did you mean by that statement?
Okay, let’s even say it is true, tell me one Nigerian that’s Ocean going? They all do Cabotage. Finish! Again, I am the minister of transport, maybe I mis-spoke. What I mean by I mis-spoke is that I should be protecting my people; I should not be putting them out there. But if they want that debate, let’s have a meeting on that. They know I know the people I spoke about. They have told me themselves.
Still on ship owners, the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) was designed to help Nigerians who don’t have ocean-going vessels. Recently, you were quoted to have said the government had withdrawn the approval of the disbursement of the Fund. And the ship owners said you were not correct. From their own investigation, the approval has not been withdrawn. The question is, has the approval been withdrawn? If it has been withdrawn, how then do you develop the sector?
I will go back to the president. It took us three years to get approval from the president, because there were so many interests. The president ‘minuted’ to the attorney general, who then advised that it was not public money; that it was money belonging to those who do business in maritime, especially shipowners and that it is held in trust by government. That the government should disburse to them, and the president approved. Then, we sent it to the ministry of finance, asking them to release the money according to the law to a specific bank, without telling us, they (ministry of finance) wrote back to the president and said it was public money.
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But NIMASA has been doing Cabotage waiver for foreign players, which the law forbids.
When did NIMASA do that? Please can you show me because that ends with the minister and I have never signed any of them?
So if there is no Cabotage waiver, how are the foreigners operating in the industry?
(NIMASA DG, Badhir Jamoh, who was present, interjects…) “We don’t give a waiver. There are two issues, one, only the minister can give waiver and NIMASA has a duty to process the waiver. So if you are a shipping company, you apply for a waiver and we process it. And when we process it, we send it to the minister. But the pattern and the main way the ministers operate, they don’t want to give the waivers. So usually most ministers, if they come, they don’t attend to those applications. But NIMASA continues to file in the applications on the processing of the waiver. The owners of those waivers assume once they pay and they have a receipt, they will go and continue trading. This matter went to the National Assembly, it called us and said we were giving waivers.
“We said we don’t give waivers. We said give us the evidence where we issued a waiver, and they didn’t have. The person responsible for waiver is the minister; this is what the act says. So they called the minister and he said, call the DG NIMASA; I have never given approval. When these two contradictory statements came, I now went to NIMASA and said all application forms received in respect of waiver and processed, send it to the honourable minister. If he doesn’t want to give, let him send it to us that he does not want to give. And that is the position till today.”
Credit: Thisday
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