FG inaugurates NPA board, cautions against parallel management

Board chairman pledges support for Eastern seaport

THefederal Government has inaugurated board members of the Nigerian Ports Authority ( NPA) with the charge of ensuring the board to establish a parallel management team to ensure optimum functioning of the nation’s sea port.

The Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, inaugurated members in Abuja, with Akin Anderson Ricketts as the board Chairman. Other members include Mohammed Koko, Onari Brown, Sen. Binki Garba, Sen. John Udoidighe, Abdullwahab Adeshina, Ghazali Mohammed, Mustapha Aminu Dutse, and Prof. Idris Abubakar.

Amaechi, while inaugurating them, said: “It is important you work with the management. It is important you realise you are not the management, you are a board.” He also tasked the new board to ensure smooth operations at the ports, saying: “We are in unusual times but we cannot afford to shut our seaports. Activities must continue.”

Ricketts, who spoke on behalf of the members, also indicated that the intractable congestion at the Lagos ports must be dealt with as a priority challenge, and pledged the board’s full cooperation to enable NPA deal with the issues.

“The major issues confronting our ports today are capacity utilisation and evacuation corridors. While the ports in the East are being grossly underutilised due to many factors, the efficiency of the ports in Lagos is hampered by inadequate evacuation corridors that lead to congestion on the road, which ultimately affects prompt service delivery.

“This is a challenge that we intend to confront head- on in conjunction with other stakeholders, with a view to ameliorating the sufferings of port users and ease business in the port, as envisaged by the Federal Government.”

“We are sure that NPA wouldn’t have its share of challenges and issues that need to be resolved or need immediate attention. We will do that in conjunction with the management and all relevant stakeholders. We will ensure that we give every issue and matter that comes to our attention the consideration it deserves and deal with it fairly and objectively, without favour or ill will,” he assured.