The ministry of transportation has countered an allegation in Thisday newspapers linking the suspension of the NPA MD Hajia Hadiza Usman to her refusal to award contracts to Chinese companies as directed by the Minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi.
In a statement titled setting the records straight signed by the permanent secretary of the ministry ,Dr Magdalene Ajani, it described the report on the front page of Thisday paper of 11th May as full of inaccuracies.
According to the Permanent Secretary, the publication is aimed at pre-empting the outcome of the investigation of the panel set up on the 10th of May by the Minister.
“it is apparent that the intention of
the story is to attempt to pre-empt the outcome of the Panel’s work, unduly seek to personalize a serious national issue bordering on transparency and accountability in the handling of public finances and attempt to drag the HMT into the arena of brick-bats and mud-slinging in order to force a distraction from the assignment now being undertaken by the Panel.”
Ajani said the insinuation that ” Amaechi had requested that two Chinese companies are selected to manage Bonny and Warri Channels, a request the NPA rejected because it violated due process” is malicious and unfounded. She said it is designed to hoodwink Nigerians and question the processes of the ministry of transportation.
According to her “It is necessary to place on record that while ‘Channel Management’ contracts have been routinely awarded over the years by the Nigerian Ports Authority at a cost of between 50 and 60 Billion Naira on an annual basis, the Honourable Minister has adopted a firm position that the NPA should undertake the job of channel management on an in-house basis through the acquisition of the necessary machinery and professional capacity given the humongous annual sums paid out to dredging Contractors by the Authority. “
“Pursuant to the above directive, the Ministry’s Maritime Services Department vide a letter No. T0160/S.30/T4E/T2/61 dated 2nd February, 2021, to the Managing Director, NPA titled “REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ON THE EXPIRED CONTRACTS: CHANNEL MANAGEMENT AND MANAGING AGENT CONTRACTS”. The letter, inter alia, requested the NPA to provide the following information for the Ministry’s records and further necessary action:”
The Permanent Secretary said the above information requested from the NPA has not been supplied since 2nd February.
She said there was no merit in the said allegations.
“In light of the above, it is indeed difficult to reconcile THISDAY’s wild, malicious and unsupportable claim that the Honourable Minister insisted on the contracts being awarded to ‘two Chinese Companies’ with the documented evidence of his position that the NPA was engaged in obvious profligacy and wastage of public funds to be spending over Fifty Billion Naira on an annual basis on contracts for which it could purchase machinery and build in-house capacity for greater long-term benefits.
It is a mark of unprofessionalism and manifest unfairness, in our opinion, that in publishing this obviously sensational and targeted story, THISDAY did not consider it necessary to contact this Ministry for its side of the story before rushing to press to satisfy its sponsors.”
She said the Ministry is not interested in engaging in a media war over the issue and urged the public to allow the panel carry out it’s assignment.
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