Managing director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mallam Habib Abdulahi, said the organisation was going into strategic partnerships as well as encouraging exports to achieve its revenue targets of $1.2bliion for 2016.
Abdullahi, who mentioned this in Lagos said the NPA was already reaching out to the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), and the ministries of agriculture and solid minerals to work out other means of assisting in diversifying revenue sources for government, especially in growing exports for the country.
According to him, the NPA may even surpass its targets if the current economic indices improved. He said the agency was also set to dedicate some port terminals to export hubs for agriculture and solid minerals. According to him, there are proposals for ports that would be solely dedicated to the export of agricultural produce and the Ilaje port in Ondo for solid minerals export.
He said the NPA was already working out a strategy with the Customs on how to achieve this milestone. According to him, the terminal operators were also being re-oriented to support the success of the programme.
Abdulahi said this would not only help in the diversification process of the economy but would also compensate for the revenue the ports were losing, as there was the urgent need to utilise the many containers that were lying idle in the ports , and being taken away empty.
For Abdullahi, the primary responsibility of the NPA is to raise more revenues for government and work to assist in expanding the economy and ensure the nation’s dependence on oil was reduced significantly. This the NPA is doing by encouraging export promotion and foreign direct investment.
He also stated that the agency was working assiduously to ensure smooth operations at the ports. According to him, they have so far has developed an inter-modal type of transportation system, railways and motor roads within the ports to ease congestions in the Lagos ports.
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