Executive Secretary, Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) Hassan Bello yesterday told the Senate Committee on marine transport that the council has so far remitted into the Federal government coffers N408million between January and September, 2016.
Bello gave the figure while reviewing the 2016 budget performance of the council during an oversight function of the senate committee.
Bello assured that the capital expenditure for the 2016 budget would increase with some of the contract recently awarded saying it hopes to reach a performance of 81 percent of its budget before the end of the year.
“For the executive summary of the budget performance, January to September, we have a revenue estimate of N14 billion, we have realise N5billion so 35 percent is the performance. Remittance to government treasury is N408million and total expenditure is 4.7billion.
“We have capital expenditure of 23 percent up till now but we hope this will increase tremendously because we have just recently awarded contract after going through the procedure. We are hoping to reach a performance of about 79 to 81percent of our budget even more,” he said.
He regretted that the 2015 capital budget did not perform well due to what he called strict adherence of the public procurement process.
While expressing appreciation to the committee for their support which he said has helped the council in no small measure, Bello appealed to the senators to look at a way of abridging the application of the public procurement process to help fast track development.
“We thank you for the support you have always rendered us either in looking at our budget or in approving the budget and in terms of legislature.
“While we are aware of the importance of strictly complying to the public procurement process, we urge the senate to look at a way of abridging the application of the legislature to fast track development,” he said.
In his remarks, the Chairman of the committee, Ahmed Sanni Yerima commended the council on their budget performance.
He said some of the projects being spearheaded by the NSC as highlighted by the Executive Secretary including the establishment of a truck transit park, take off of the Inland dry ports among others if well implemented would help in enhancing port operations.