NPA boss, Hadiza Usman begins review of dollar payment by port concessionaires
The managing director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala Usman has assigned the finance and administration department of the authority to look into how to do a ‘mirror match’ of the inflow and outflow of dollars in the agency.
In an interview, she said having listened to several stakeholders on the issue and in line with the reformist agenda of her administration, “We would look into the dollarization of payments, all of these will not be clear until we do a realistic review of the concession agreement, even for us, some of our obligations that we pay in dollars, we are looking to see so we don’t have to pay everything in dollars, as we review the inflow of dollars, we would also review the outflow of dollars so there would be a mirror match”.
“I have directed the executive director, finance and administration to look into this and they have submitted an interim position on how we can mirror our mixed currency position in the authority, all of this would be concluded as we review the concession agreement,” she assured
As part of effort to quicken the move, she said all is set to open the window for the expression of interest from transaction advisers that would work with the agency to review the concession agreement NPA signed with terminal operators in 2006.
“Externally, we are putting out an advert requesting and seeking expression of interest from transaction advisers that would work with us on reviewing the concession agreement. When you look at the provisions for the guaranteed minimum tonnage, you would wonder why we have such numbers.
“One of the reasons we are looking for a transaction adviser that would help a robust consortium that would come up, we need to look properly so that we don’t sign an over-supplemented agreement that has not addressed some of the issues we have,” she said.
