The Senior Staff Association of Statutory Corporations and Government Owned Companies (SSASCGOC), Maritime branch, has lamented over the hard times being experienced by workers of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) on the recent Post-No-Debit (PND) notice placed on the Authority’s account.

The Trade Union Congress (TUC) affiliate group also called on President Bola Tinubu led government to address the issue as it is affecting port operations nationwide.

The union president, Comrade Akinola Bodunde, while addressing newsmen on Tuesday, said the policy is posing lots of challenges to the agency, even as it added that some ports would soon face the challenge of power outage as they cannot afford to buy diesel to run generators.

He said, “Putting Post-No-Debit on our account is affecting the workers. Now diesel has finished, but there is no money to buy diesel. Some ports don’t have light as we speak.

“Nothing is paid for. The NPA headquarters in Marina cannot send money to the ports as a result of this policy, that’s why some ports don’t have light right now.

“That Post-No-Debit was signed by the office of the Accountant-General but the NPA management is on it right now.”

The union also kicked against the proposal by the Federal Ministry of Finance to slash revenue of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) into equal halves.

SSASCGOC added that if the policy is allowed, portends that the Authority will have to carry out all its functions like dredging, payment of salaries, allowances, payment for ancillary services to contracted companies, maintenance of all its offices across the nation from the 50 percent of its revenue drive that will be retained for it.

Comrade Bodunde condemned the call by the Ministry of Finance, saying that the remaining revenue would not suffice to carry out the agency’s statutory functions efficiently.

While analysing that the Authority has many ventures on which it spends its money, he added that NPA would not be able to service all the subordinate ventures effectively.

Bodunde called on the Federal Government to look inward and allow the port authority to maintain 70:30 percentage arrangement noting that the responsibilities upon the NPA is much.

He lamented that if the policy is allowed to stand, it would have a negative impact on the operations of NPA and the ports nationwide.

His words, “What we are saying is the directive from the Minister of Finance that the ministry will take 50 percent of whatever revenue generated by NPA in a year is not acceptable.

“Money goes into dredging every year in dollars. We have partnership with other organisations that we pay from the money we generate every year like INTELS, LTT, MARPOL, the towage in the East, in Lekki and so on.

“Now the quay apron is bad which needs urgent action, the management is planning to rehabilitate all the ports because they are old. You can’t compare them with Lekki that is just coming on board or PTML

“If all these issues are not addressed urgent by the government, then the unions may be forced to shut down operations nationwide,” Bodunde expressed. (Nigerian Tribune)

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