The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) generated a total of N172.286 billion from its operations in the first half of 2022.
Similarly, the Authority remitted N78.497 billion to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) of the federation account within the period under review.
These disclosures were contained in the Authority 2022 half year operational reports released by its Managing Director, Mohammed Bello-Koko, yesterday.
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Mohammed Bello-Koko in the release said, “a breakdown of the figure indicates that N50,255,925,779.20 (fifty billion, two hundred and fifty-five million, nine hundred and twenty-five thousand, seven hundred and seventy-nine Naira, twenty kobo) 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.
“The remaining sum of N28,241,041,083.00 (twenty-eight billion, two hundred and forty-one million, forty-one thousand, eighty-three Naira) relates to the remittance with respect to other periods.”
The NPA helmsman said considering the global economic meltdown and worrisome inflation trends across nations, the half-year operational statistics is encouraging.
“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.”
He further explained that the remittances were expressions of the operational performance of ports operations and it’s attendant current challenges in cargo ship calls and dwell time.
“In the first half of 2022, a total of 1,992 ships calls were recorded and the aggregate of the Gross Registered tonnage (GRT) of vessels was 60,235,133 tons.
“The Authority achieved total cargo throughput of 38,672,392 metric tonnes and 849,175 teus (twenty-foot equivalent units) of container traffic. Vehicle traffic handled, during the period under review, was 132,543 units.
“Also, the average turn-around-time (TAT) of vessels, indicating port efficiency, stood at 5.16days. This is an improvement and we are strategising to perform better in the second half of the year.
“Port remains the gateway of the national economy, and thus represents the barometer by which we measure the pulse of the economy.
“The Authority remains committed to providing improved services to increase efficiency at the ports that impact on higher revenue generation and economic growth of the nation.”
He said management has done much to improve service delivery and cost efficiencies even as he listed areas where significant improvement have taken place to include deployment of marine crafts at all ports locations; marking/laying of buoys at Calabar and Escravos Channel to improve safe navigation; encouraging the use of Eastern Port by way of incentives to importers on port charges.
Others are deployment of security patrol boats to increase safety along the Port Quays; and repairs/ rehabilitation of ports’ access roads to improve cargo evacuation and dwell time.
“The improvements include deployment of barges for cargo evacuation to reduce traffic gridlock on the roads; licencing of export processing terminals in order to support the federal government’s initiative on increase in non-oil exports; creating MSS for barge operations in order to improve multi-modal means of cargo movement; and, working on initiatives to improve on staff members’ welfare.”
While assuring stakeholders and Nigerians that the Authority would exceed expectations in terms of revenue generation and keep fidelity to its remittances into the CRF for the year, he
said management will continue to come raise the bar in system innovations to improve trade facilitation, service delivery and cost efficiencies.