The Nigerian Ports Authority NPA has said that termination of pilotage monitoring agreement with Intels Nigeria Ltd would not affect anything as far as pilotage supervision services are concerned. Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority NPA, Hadiza Bala Usman assured workers involved in boat services who may be affected by the termination of contract with Intels that they will be absorbed by the new management.
The NPA boss who was speaking at a media parley with newsmen in Lagos said foot-dragging by the oil and gas logistics giant, Intels Nigeria Limited to comply with the terms of a joint account with the authority. She stated that the decision which was taken as part of the implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) forced the management to seek the advice of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN) on the way forward.
Usman said that the management of NPA for about a year and three months made several attempts to get Intels to comply with the terms of a joint account without success. She explained that “the authority wanted a situation in which on operating the joint account, everyone will see what was being paid into the account in a manner that is transparent”.
According to her, this attitude of Intels, was frustrating at a time that the NPA had to comply with other agencies of government on the TSA as directed by the federal government. On the debts which NPA owed Intels, the MD said “such indebtedness would always be paid as has been the case”.
Usman said it was surprising and unacceptable that Intels took advantage of such debts to hold revenue it generated from the pilotage to offset different contract jobs. ”it was not right for Intels to use what was generated from pilotage agreement to repay itself on clearly different contract. This was even as the management of the NPA assured Intels that it will always pay whatever is being owed.
“This discussion with intels on the need to comply with the TSA started about 15 months ago, from June 2016 to date. Letters had been written, meetings held regarding for Intels to comply, but intels had continuously refused to comply. They refused to make payments to the NPA account. They maintained that payments for pilotage services must come to their coffers,” she added.
The Managing Director noted that “the constitution stipulated that all revenues due to the Federal Government should go to the consolidated revenue account of the Federal Government, but Intels want to collect monies, deduct what they want and give government the balance”.
A development she said would neither not work nor sustain government’s implementation of the TSA.
