NPA Has Never Had It This Bad, Group Tells Bala Usman

The Nigerian Importers Integrity Association (NIIA) has scored the Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala Usman low in her first year in office.

The Group said in a release on Wednesday that no meaningful progress was recorded at the ports during Bala Usman’s first year in office, stating that Nigerian Ports Authority ”never had it this bad”.

“The roads are as bad as ever, port congestion is building because trucks cannot get into the port, rickety trucks still ply our ports, nothing has changed at the port, but most importantly, there has not been any investment at the port since she was appointed into that office because investors are being scared away by her utterances,” NIIA President, Mr. Godwin Onyekazi, stated in the press release.

He said Bala Usman’s “inexperience and reckless utterances” have denied the ports of much-needed investments, even as cargo volumes have continued to dwindle, leading to loss of jobs in the past one year.

Onyekazi said: “Here is someone who does not understand that in that position, reckless utterances and the castigation of investors on the pages of newspapers send wrong signals to the investing and shipping community. Such utterances have a way of adding to the cost of doing business at the port.

“Her tenure has created so much uncertainty in the system such that it will take several years to clean up and regain the confidence of investors.

“Not a dollar inflow has been recorded under her tenure. Forget the propaganda machine. Even promoters of the deep seaport projects, which held so much hope for the country, are now foot-dragging because she has portrayed Nigeria as a country that has scant respect for the sanctity of contract.”

He argued that the NPA under Usman has not been able to implement the Executive Order issued by the acting President Yemi Osinbajo’s months after it was handed out, adding past efforts by former NPA managements to build efficiency and investor confidence in the Nigerian maritime industry are being daily brought to naught by the present NPA management.

“We hope that as she enters her second year in office, she will settle down, play less politics and seek less media attention. She needs to face the job of administering the ports maturely. Unfortunately, that was not the case in her first year,” Onyekazi said, even as he advised the NPA boss to borrow a leaf from Osinbajo and Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi on how to handle issues that concern private investments and public interests should be handled.