By Idu Jude
The minister of Transportation Rt. Honourable Chibuike Amaechi, has enjoined the 11 men investigative panel put up to bring to proper records the activities of the Nigeria Port Authority, to ensure that the presidential directive is fully carried out.

The minister gave the order Monday in Abuja while inaugurating the panel of investigation, which will be chaired by the Director of Maritime Services in the Ministry Alhaji Sulaiman Auwalu.

According to Amaechi, the reason for the setting of the panel of inquiry is to carry out presidential requests in looking into the activities of the NPA from 2016 till date, having obtained presidential approval.  He said, “for the sake of transparency, what we have done is to balance the choice of members of the panel. As you can see, 5 people are from the ministry of transportation, while 6 persons are from the Presidency, which is the Head of civil service of the Federation.

“Actually this is a discharge of our responsibility as ministers of Transportation and I don’t see why anybody is complaining. What is even wrong in looking at what is happening in NPA the ministry should carry out an investigation. I don’t see what is wrong with that and as a minister, for four years I hardly know what was happening there. So I think that my responsibility as a minister is to inquire and know what is going on.

“And know body should forget that we asked the office of the auditor general of the Federation to carry out an audit of the NPA he declined and in declining the approval of the President, the proper thing is move in and carry out an investigation and we want to know the process of procurement as well as the budget just to know if everything is right. But what bothers me, is that some people say nobody should inquire. But let me tell you that nobody has been indicted but when you complete your assignment, we will be glad to pass on the report to the President. But don’t forget that your main assignment is to check the procurement processes from 2016 till date and that is why you don’t have a time limit because you need time to check everything”.

Amaechi inaugurates 11-member committee to probe activities of NPA

“I think that this NPA’s revenue has exceeded a trillion naira for the past five years and with this I’m going by budget submission at the budget office, if their budget in five years is 300 billion nairas, multiply by five years then it is either a trillion or slightly above that. So it will take you some time to go through to determine both income and expenditure. You are not auditing so that the auditor general will not say you are interfering with his job. But what you will find out is the process and how that money was spent. We should please be diligent and invite anybody you want to invite and please invite the minister if there is an infraction. I have been a minister for six years and if there is any infraction that you see please invite me and I will be glad to be there before you. If there is any other person in the NPA or the ministry that you need to invite, please feel free to invite”.

He observed that Nigeria deserves more revenue from an agency overseeing all trading in the maritime industry. “Actually Nigerian Ports Authorities is the agency that manages the trade activities that take place in Nigeria maritime and should be able to get a lot of resources for the government. It takes trade income and expenditures, processes. It determines current prices of items and processes, so these are some of the things we expect you to put in check and how much of these things have been achieved in the sense that at the end of the day, nobody would fault you”.

Minister of transportation Uses the opportunity to appeal to Nigerians to please allow both him and the Minister of State for Transportation Gbemisola Saraki to do their job. He said, when we say allow us to do our job, it does not mean we are probing anybody and I don’t see anything special about NPA that everybody is shouting. Let us reduce this shouting and allow the panel to do its job and we will publish the report after we have taken it to the presidency.

The Minister gives terms of reference as follows;

To examine and investigate the administrative policies and strategies adopted by the Managing Director of Nigerian Port Authority and confirm compliance with extant laws and rules from 2016 to date

To examine and investigate issues leading to the termination of pilotage and other contracts of NPA and confirm compliance with the terms of the relative contract, court rulings, and presidential directives.

To also examine and investigate compliance with the communication channel as obtained in the public service.

Among the terms of reference, are to examine and investigate the procurement of contracts from 2016 to date.

To come up with suggestions and advice that would strengthen the operations of the NPA and forestall such occurrences in the future.

Reps fume over failure of MDAs to appear at investigative hearing

And to recommend any other matter that may be necessary for the course of the assignment.

Members of the committee include Sulaiman Auwalu the Director of Maritime services to serve as the chairman, Dr. Ben Omogo, Dr. Hassan Adamu, Mrs. Mercy Ilori, Mr. Muhiy-deen Awwal, Gabriel Fan, and three other staff from the human resource management to serve as Secretariat