NPA MD advised to push for enactment of ports and harbor bill

…As Folarin urges NPA to get priorities right

By Richards Adeniyi

THE new Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, Ms Hadiza Bala-Usman, has been charged to urgently push for the enactment of the Ports and Harbour Authorities Bill and develop a National Port Development Strategy which will have a PPP sector engagement.

Barrister Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, a senior partner, Olisa Agbakoba Legal (OAL), gave the charge to Bala Usman while identifying immediate tasks for her in a press release signed by Agbakoba himself, a copy of which was made available to this reporter.

While expressing delight with the appointment of Ms Hadiza Bala-Usman, said the review of all concession contracts with a view to having them implemented by the concessionaires stressing that NPA must be made to function as a landlord rather than servicing as a port agency.

He called on the managing director to develop a management strategy to tackle this challenge. “There is need to turn around the NPA from service port agency to a Landlord Agency. Ms Bala-Usman will need to urgently develop a management strategy to tackle this challenge given that NPA for a long time provided services directly to port users. Those services have now been concesioned to private ports,” he said.

ALSO SEE: Maritime workers’ welfare is our priority — NIMASA DG

In another development, chairman of the Port Consultative Council (PPC) Otunba Kunle Folarin has also called on the new managing director of the NPA, Hadiza Bala-Usman to ensure the agency gets its priorities right as regards the agency’s five years strategic plan and its role as landlord of the ports.

Speaking recently in an exclusive chat with National Daily, Folarin explained that it is important that the new NPA Managing Director knows her priorities as she is new in the nation’s maritime sector.

“The new Managing Director will have to come out with a blue-print because there are a lot of issues that can be in a priority plan. It is those plans that will become strategic to the development of the port environment and actualization of the mandate of the NPA under her.”

On NPA role as the landlord of the port, Folarin explained that the NPA needs to improve the infrastructure and superstructure of the ports. “The NPA needs to also introduce a workable port community system that will link all stakeholders together. The agency has to also create a regime of technical regulation as far as harbor services are concerned.