NPA warns concessionaires to pay their debts or face sanctions

The Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Usman, has said that the agency would ensure that all outstanding payments and dues were remitted by concessionaires and other stakeholders.
Usman said this on Friday in a statement issued by the agency’s spokesman, Abdullahi Goje, after the quarterly meeting of the NPA management and stakeholders in Lagos.
She said that the authority would provide an enabling environment for efficient port services in view of the vital role the maritime sub-sector played.
According to her, management has put in place a machinery to ensure that there was a level-playing field for operators in the sector.
Usman said that the management would ensure that rules guiding port operations were strictly adhered to.
She told stakeholders that the NPA management had set up a committee to liaise with representatives of terminal operators with a view to reviewing existing concession agreement as planned.
Usman said that NPA was determined to actualise the result within the shortest time.
The managing director frowned at the attitude of shipping companies and terminal operators, who connived to litter the roads with empty containers under the guise of not having a holding bay.
She said that sanctions, would be invoked on erring oganisations that refused to obey rules guiding the directives after a one-week window.