How Bello Koko is transforming NPA with new initiatives

Since his appointment, the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Mohammed Bello Koko, has shown impeccable professionalism, discipline and perseverance in shaking up old-fashioned narratives in ports of the country, writes Tola Adenubi.

When President Muhammadu Buhari approved the appointment of Mohammed Bello-Koko as Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), the mandate was clear; making Nigerian ports the most efficient port in Africa.

The NPA MD's first order of business on the rise was to launch new initiatives targeting cost and value maximization by infusing greater efficiency into NPA's various operations, plugging revenue leaks and reducing administrative overhead.

By exposing its experience in the private sector, there has been an improvement in debt collection and recovery mechanisms, which has resulted in a remarkable decrease in the debt owed to the agency for services rendered to stakeholders such as NNPC Limited, International Oil Companies (IOC) and other partners.

With some malicious reports in a section of the media aimed at derailing Koko, the imperative to disambiguate the trajectory of the NPA MD, during his first ten months in office has become necessary.

BLOCKING REVENUE LEAKS

Since his appointment as Managing Director/CEO in February 2022, Mohammed Bello Koko has recorded several milestone achievements that have earned him accolades and awards from several media organizations. Nigeria is now facing revenue challenges due to unprecedented oil theft. The NPA under Koko has, over the past ten months, poured billions of naira into the federation account, helping the federal government ease the revenue challenge. It has done so by tightening collection mechanisms and plugging revenue leakages which resulted in the unprecedented generation of N286 billion and the disbursement of N103 billion in October 2022 to the Consolidated Revenue Fund. (CRF) of the federation. Building decaying port infrastructure has always been Koko's dream, and he has done so with the supply and installation of 86 numbered buoys for the Warri and Calabar Pilotage Districts. Other stellar achievements include; investigation and installation of buoys at the Ijegun/Kirikiri water channel, licensing and upgrading of pilots in the four pilotage districts, acquisition of port craft (tugs, pilot cutters and patrol boats, licensing of four additional truck parks to increase truck fleet capacity at Lagos Ports and the licensing of 10 export processing terminals to facilitate exports to Nigerian seaports, four of which are already fully operational.

TRUCK TURN TIME

Anyone who has been to Apapa in recent years will attest to the threat of truckers and the resulting traffic jams on the access roads to the port. Today, there is a significant reduction in truck turnaround time thanks to the successful monitoring of the E-Call Up system. To minimize truck breakdowns on port access roads, approximately 3,000 trucks were inspected, certified and decaled to ensure safety and compliance with ISO certification requirements and minimum safety standards (MSS) . This has led to a 65% reduction in the number of accidents recorded, resulting from the improved standards of trucks operating on port premises. The NPA, in line with Koko's directive, enforced full compliance of trucks with the electronic call regime and minimum safety standard, which resulted in a significant reduction in traffic congestion along the main corridor of the port and internal access routes through enforcement measures, appropriate batch processing, and continuous access control mechanisms. and the movement of cargo via barges. To save the country much-needed foreign currency, Koko ensured that the full dry-docking of some tugs was done locally, which increased the authority's fleet. To ensure adequate security in the ports, the NPA has procured and deployed six Security Patrol Boats (SPBs) to all pilotage districts to deal with the relentless attacks from ships along the canals and on the seafronts of the ports. . During the reporting period, the NPA ensured the standardization of operational procedures for different activities, established the Forcados signaling station to allow the port to capture the movement of more service boats and completed the bathymetric survey for the dredging of the Escravos canals.

RENEWAL OF THE EAST PORT

Absent the vital elements necessary for efficient port operations, what the NPA has achieved in the past 10 months is unprecedented. They understand; surveying and mapping from the FairWay buoy to the ports of Warri-Sapele-Koko to the prescribed standards of UKHO maps; increase container storage capacity at the Port of Rivers resulting from the conversion of unused space in the PTOL terminal to a stacking area; supply of 24 motorcycles deployed to facilitate the effective monitoring of the Truck E-Call Up operation in Ap...