… May Scrap Anti-Corruption Committee

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has concluded plans to dissolve the Port Industry Anti-Corruption Standing Committee (PIACSC) with effect from Monday this week, according to ships and ports source.

Authoritative sources at the NPA revealed that the NPA intends to dissolve the committee in order to restructure the anti-corruption campaign to become port – based and give it more bite.

Part of the reasons, according to the sources, is to align the anti-corruption crusade with current realities since the committee was set up before the port reforms in 2006.

It was learnt that the NPA management has saddled the chairman of the NPA’s newly established Anti-Corruption and Transparency Monitoring Unit (ACTU), Mr. Nasir Anas Mohammed, with the responsibility of winding down the operations of the PIACSC.

It would be recalled that the PIACSC was constituted in 2001 by the NPA, following the approval of the then Transport Minister, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, in collaboration with other stakeholders’ summit organised by the Nigerian Ports Authority.

Members of the PIACSC are drawn from NPA, shipping companies, freight forwarding group of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Transparency in Nigeria, Nigeria Customs  Service (NCS), Port Authority Police Command (PAPC), Nigeria Shippers’ Council (NSC), and Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) amongst others.

The Committee has sub-committees in the ports outside Lagos, including Port-Harcourt, Onne, Warri and Calabar, replicating most of the stakeholders stated earlier.

At inception, the committee had Mr. Val Usifor as its pioneer chairman until 2010 when he voluntarily relinquished the post and was succeeded by the then vice chairman, Alhaji Suleiman Hameen.

With the death of Hakeem last year Mrs Enoche Ogenyi, became the PIACSC Coordinator, a position she still holds.