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Habib Abdullahi, Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority “Oil & Gas Cargo” was cooked – PTOL Boss
The idea of designating Onne, Warri and Calabar Ports as terminals for oil and gas cargo exclusively assigned to the Integrated Logistics Systems Limited (Intels) has been said to be an aberration created by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).
Findings by MMS Plus have equally shown that the management of NPA may have given the Minister of Transport, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi wrong briefings about the monopoly controversy.
Reacting to the Minister’s recent statement in Lagos that concessionaires should stick to their agreement, the Managing Director of Ports and Terminals Operators Limited (PTOL), Mrs. Lizzy Ovude in a chat with MMS Plus accused NPA of master-minding the exclusivity controversy to serve the selfish quest of some of the management staff.
“The concession agreement was signed in 2006 but in 2008, Intels started flying a letter claimed to have been written and signed by a former Director of Transport at the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE).
I called up the man and he said he did not sign any letter, meaning that the letter was forged. You cannot sign any agreement in 2006 and then in 2008 you are presenting a letter from BPE claiming exclusivity”, she stated.
Dismissing the claims by Engr. David Omonibeke, Executive Director, Marine and Operations of NPA that Intels was given exclusivity for oil and gas cargo because they accepted to pay higher rate on cargo tonnage, PTOL boss, noted, “All terminals agreed to pay one dollar per ton of cargo as negotiated with the government while the concession was going on. It was only Intels that said it would pay 4 dollars point something, which gradually rose to 5 dollars per ton of cargo. But in 2008 after the concession agreement had been signed Intels changed their negotiation terms as originally agreed and then NPA said they are paying higher and went further to say that they gave them exclusivity because they are paying higher. Have they asked how much they collect? Some other terminals collect 7 dollars per ton, they started with paying 5.1 dollars per ton as at 2006. Now, while they charge 55 dollars per ton other terminal operators charge 7.4 dollars per ton of cargo. So if Intels collects 55 dollars per ton of cargo and pay 5 dollars per ton to NPA, are they better than those charging 7.4 dollars?
“The essence of the concession exercise was to bring about competition, efficiency and reduce cost of doing business at the port. At the end of the day Intels collects that kind of money and pay so small to government. What kind of achievement are they making? Who pays the price at the end of the day, is it not the Nigerian people?” Ovude noted.
She insisted that there was a subsisting agreement, adding: “why don’t we abide by the concession agreement? The agreement did not grant any exclusivity to anybody or terminal. If you are a container terminal operator you concentrate on your container. Ours is a multi-purpose cargo terminal and there are other multi-purpose cargo terminals. So as a multi-purpose terminal, we are allowed to handle any type of cargo. There is nothing like oil and gas cargo terminal in maritime domain. It is just a nomenclature that Intels and NPA developed. NPA recognizes the fact that Onne is an oil and gas trade free zone but that has nothing to do with port operations and type of cargo coming into the terminal.”
Ovude further explained that after the forged BPE letter of 2008 could not give force to their intention, they went ahead and got a presidential directive in April, 2015 through the then Minister of Transport, Sen. Idris Umar and the chairman of NPA, Chief Anthony Anenih.
However, Omonibeke, it was gathered has not disclosed to Amaechi that he has not submitted the report of a ministerial committee on the resolution of the terminals oil and gas cargo rivalry set up by the former minister of transport, which he presided over as a chairman.
Speaking at a stakeholders forum, recently in Lagos, Amaechi had also called on all the feuding terminal operators to come forward with their concession agreement, emphasizing that he would not jump at reviewing the concession agreement until the necessary performance audit is done but however noted that the Federal Government believes in the sanctity of agreements.
