Mohammed Bello-Koko, the managing director and chief executive officer of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), says the economic policies of President Bola Tinubu is driving growth in the maritime sector.
Speaking during a visit to the Lagos ports access roads whose decade-long traffic gridlock was recently cleared by the NPA, Bello-Koko said sanity has since returned to the roads and it will be sustained to promote ease of doing business and drive exports to enhance Nigeria’s balance of trade.
He said the president’s policies have led to massive improvement in revenue generation by the agency.
The NPA boss commended Adegboyega Oyetola, the minister of marine and blue economy, for his approach towards driving change in the industry.
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“The implementation of continuous performance improvement measures resulted in unprecedented revenue generation and remittances to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) of the federation, with revenues steadily growing from N361 billion in 2022 to N501 billion as at December 2023; and remittances increasing from N93.4 billion in 2022 to N131.2 billion by year end 2023,” Bello-Koko said.
“Taxes paid to the government of the Federation also grew at various times in the period under review up to $77.7 million and N17.6 billion respectively.
“The foregoing added to strategic forecasts set to be actualised in 2024, such as the $1 billion reconstruction of Tincan Island Port Complex and the comprehensive rehabilitation of Apapa, Rivers, Onne, Warri and Calabar Port Complexes, New Ports Developments viz; Badagry Deep Seaport, Snake Island, Burutu and Ondo Deep Seaports, the Port Community System (PCS) and the National Single Window amongst other initiatives for port competitiveness being aggressively implemented, it is evident that the Nigerian Ports Authority has been positioned to not only create but sustain superior performance necessary to maximize the comparative advantages that Nigeria’s maritime endowments confer.”
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