FG Ejects NDLEA, NAFDAC, Others From Seaports

Federal Government, on Monday ordered the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and six other parastatal agencies to move out of the seaports within two weeks.

The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, gave the order on Monday in Lagos at the end of the tour of the Presidential Task Force to the ports.

Our correspondent  reports that with the new measure, the two agencies, the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration Control  (NAFDAC) and five others would no longer be allowed to operate at the ports.

Okonjo-Iweala said that only six agencies including the Nigeria Port Authority (NPA) and NIMASA would be allowed to operate at the ports.

She said that other agencies allowed to operate at the ports were the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Nigeria Police, Nigeria Immigration Service and Port Health Services.

The minister said that there was the need to reduce the high cost of doing business at the ports for businessmen to create more jobs.

She said that the objective of the port reform was to reduce the time spent in clearing goods from several weeks to one week, stop extortion and unnecessary checkpoints at the ports.

“We want to implement additional measures like infrastructural development at the ports to make things work and achieve a faster Turn Around Time (TAM),” Okonjo-Iweala said.

The minister also announced that the Customs Task Force had been disbanded in response to the complaints of widespread stoppage of cargoes, adding that the Cargo Tracking Note of the NPA had also been abolished.

She further directed that customs should work 24- hour shift system and gave the service three months to comply in the bid to make the ports to operate like other ports in the world.

Okonjo-Iweala said that government would work out plans to deal with the problem of empty containers so that ships could go back with empty containers.

She directed the NPA, as an interim regulator, to oversee the activities of the concessionaires and look at their tariffs.

The Minister of Transport, Alhaji Idris Umar, said that the issue of infrastructure and bad access roads would be addressed.

Umar said that one of the key issues to be discussed by the Federal Executive Council at its next meeting would be the repair of the bad access roads to the ports.

President Goodluck Jonathan (left) decorating Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Mohammed Umar, with NAF Distinguished Flying Star medal and presentation of flag to Mobility Command in Abuja, yesterday