The Nigerian Ports Authority said it remitted N490.229bn into the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federal Government between 2011 and 2022.
The Managing Director of NPA, Mohammed Bello-Koko, while addressing journalists at the agency’s head office in Marina, Lagos, over the weekend, said that in 2022 alone, NPA remitted N92.967bn. He noted that the 2022 reremittance included N28.3bn remitted as closing balance of audited reconciled from 2019 to 2022 financial years.
He also said that in the first half of 2022, the country recorded 1,992 ships calling at the seaports of Apapa, TinCan Island, Rivers, Onne, Calabar and Delta ports with a total gross registered tonnage of, 60, 235, 133 with the period under review.
Bello-Koko said that in 2021 period under review, 4100 ships called at Apapa, TinCan Island, Rivers, Onne, Calabar and Delta ports, a figure which showed 2,108 reduction in the number of ships that called to the nation. He added that in the same period of 2021, the total GRT was 125, 125, 787.
The figure showed that there was a 107per cent decrease in the tonnage within the period under review in 2021 and 2022 while there was a 105 per cent reduction on the ships that called in the country with the period under review.
“On the cargo throughput, we have, 38, 672, 392 cargoes that came into the country through, Apapa, TinCan Island, Rivers, Onne, Calabar and Delta ports in the first half of 2022 while in 2021 within the period under review, we recorded 79, 915, 877 – a figure which shows 106 per cent decrease in cargo throughput within the period under review.”
“The performance of port activities depicts near- constancy of cargo traffic owing to the fact that the Nigerian Gross Domestic Product has not experienced a major shift post-recession of 2016. It is important to note that there is a correlation between the GDP and Port performance.”
The NPA boss, however, said that the agency intended to grow total throughput by five percent annually – from 80.2m metric tons in 2019 to 100m metric tons -excluding crude oil by 2025.
“We also intend to increase the autonomy of the ports to stimulate inter-port competition. We also intend to reduce port cost by at least 30per cent, reduction in turn-around time from an average of four to five days in 2019 to two days by 2025.”
