The House of Representatives Committee on Ports and Harbours has commended the management of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) for delivering exceptional results despite impediments outside of its control.
Speaking during a press conference to conclude a three-day oversight visit to the NPA, Chairman of the Committee; Nnolim Nnaji said “the Management and staff have done very well in the area of unprecedented revenue generation and remittance to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) of the federation and in the area of infrastructure and equipment renewal”.
Speaking further, the Chairman noted that “we have seen the level of decay at the Ports and we agree with the Management of NPA on the need to urgently reconstruct TinCan Island and comprehensively rehabilitate Apapa, Rivers, Warri, Onne and Calabar Port Complexes respectively. We have also noted how the insistence by Nigeria Customs on 100% physical examination of cargo negates the objectives of trade facilitation and ease of doing business, even though we must acknowledge the efforts of the current leadership of Nigeria Customs and we will give legislative support where necessary for the automation of cargo examination through use of scanners”.
“On the way to Lekki Deep Seaport, the Committee got a firsthand experience of the pressing need for the government to ramp up efforts at deploying multi modalism in the evacuation of cargo from the ports to eliminate the delays associated with over concentration on the roads”, the chairman said.
