MD, NPA, Mohammed Bello-Koko

Official statistics have shown that Nigeria imported a total of 132, 543 units of fully built units FBU of vehicles in six months covering January –June, 2022 amidst the worsening foreign exchange crisis, which has seen the country’s currency, the naira exchange all- time low of N730 to the United States dollar.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Ports Authority NPA generated a total revenue of N172.3billion from its operations in the review period out of which it has remitted a total N78.5billion to the Consolidated Revenue Fund CRF of the Federal Government to be shared among the other two tiers comprising the state and local governments.

In a recent half year report released by the Managing Director of the NPA, Mohammed Bello-Koko, the authority indicated that a total of 1, 992 vessels laden with an aggregate gross registered tonnage GRT of 60.2 million metric tonnes and 849,175 TEUs (twenty equivalent units) of containers were handled at the nation’s major eight seaports within the six –month period.

Further details show that a total of 38.7million metric tonnes of bulk cargo were handled across all the seaport locations even as the 132, 543 units of vehicles comprising both brand new and used motor vehicles were handled at its roll-on-roll-off RoRo Port located in Lagos.

It was further gathered that average turn-around-time of the 1, 992 vessels that called at the ports within the review period stood at 5.16 days, an indication that the ports have recorded significant improvements in terms of efficiency, as the management assures of further improving on this in the subsequent months.

While giving details of the revenue, the MD noted that a breakdown of the figures indicates that N50.3billion represented cash remittances, the compulsory deduction of 25 per cent of revenue generated and other sundry payments for the absolute period of January-June 2022. He also stated that the remaining sum of N28.2billion relates to the remittance with respect to other periods.”

“In the face of global economic and inflation crises, among other negative factors, the half-year operational statistics are encouraging and these bolstered impressive remittances to the CRF of the federal government.

 “Global economic and inflation crises, global reduction in household incomes and purchasing power and scarcity of foreign exchange all of which has negatively affected business environment, affected government revenue and constrained expenditure.

“The development in the port industry cannot be severed from the macro-economic environment with galloping inflation that has grossly reduced the disposable income of the households, the depreciating exchange rates that stifle business environment and the dwindling government revenue that constrains expenditure.

“In the face of these harsh macro-economic indices, the NPA has forged on to deliver port and harbour services to the teeming operators in the export and import businesses across the country. These remittances are expressions of the operational performance of the ports”, Bello-Koko also said.