The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), says the nation’s cargo throughput has increased by almost 100 per cent in the last six years.

NPA General Manager (Public Affairs), Chief Michael Ajayi, told our correspondent  last Thursday in Lagos that the cargo throughput increased from 42 million tonnes in 2006 to 82 million tonnes in 2012.

He said that the tremendous improvement was due to the transformation programme of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Ajayi said that reports that cargoes were being diverted to neighbouring countries due to inefficiency and high cost of doing business in Nigeria were diversionary.

According to him, the critics have no empirical foundation or statistics to back up their claims,’’ he told our correspondent.

He said that NPA would want anybody with data on cargo diversion to come forward with it.

“The neighbouring ports are not more efficient than Nigerian ports.

“The terminal operators from 2006 have reduced considerably the cargo dwell and ship waiting time,’’ Ajayi said.

He said that a substantial sum of money had been spent to improve infrastructure at the ports.

The NPA spokesman said that critics had never bothered to find out the motive behind cargo diversion.

“The motive is that they want to bring contraband into the country and evade duty to get abnormal profits,” he said.

Ajayi told our correspondent that if there were substantial cargo diversion as claimed by critics, one would have expected the throughput to be on the downward trend.

“But, that is not the case as the throughput has increased by almost 100 per cent.

“Most governments of the neighbouring ports, which compete with Nigeria ports, rely solely on the revenue from their ports.