NPA faults Senate claim on 282 missing vessels

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has faulted the claims of the Senate that 282 vessels got missing under its watch between 2010 and 2016, saying some of the claims by the lawmakers cannot be verified.

The NPA also said some of documents were repetitive and some did not provide the data that will enable verification by the authority.

Recall the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariffs, headed by Senator Hope Uzodinma, recently claimed at a public hearing on “Smuggling - A Threat to Nigeria’s Quest to Self-Sufficiency in Rice Production,” that a total of 282 vessels got missing at the various terminals of the NPA between 2010 and 2016.

According to him, the documents available to the Senate showed names of the vessel owners and the NPA officials who released them.

But the NPA in a statement yesterday signed by Ibrahim Nasiru, the Principal Manager Public Affairs, said “On Thursday, July 20, 2017, the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff handed over documents containing a list of 29 items which are a combination of vessels and details of individual Bill of Ladings of consignments carried by different vessels to representatives of NPA for review.”

“On July 24, 2017, the NPA received another set of 10 volumes of items numbering 1-1252 alleged to have been transported by vessels said to have called at the NPA. This was delivered to the authority by the Nigerian Shippers Council on the instructions of the Senate Committee,” it noted.

NPA after reviewing the documents as requested by the Committee made the following discoveries: