The Senate Committee on Marine Transport on Friday threatened to revoke the port concession agreement with any terminal operator that fails to keep its own side of the agreement.
Committee Chairman, Ahmed Yerima after a five-day oversight supervision by the committee at Western and Eastern ports, stated that some of the concessionaires had refused to perform their obligations.
He said the concession agreement should be reviewed every two years and urged the terminal operators to fulfill their financial obligations as highlighted in the Memorandum of Understanding (Mou) with the Federal Government in order to reap the dividends of port concession.
“Since 2006, when the Federal Government approved the ports for concession, there has been no review of the agreement,” he said.
“We have the power to call for the cancellation of agreement with any concessionaire, who is not performing. “If you look at the relationship between government and the concessionaires, some of the concessionaires have violated the agreement.
“We are going to look deep into it and ensure that the concessionaires operate within the ambit of the agreement”.
He said that the Senate had established a Sub-Committee on Investigation, which was new in the history of Senate to ensure proper operations of the concessionaires.
Yerima said that the Committee on Marine Transport had written letters to both NPA and terminal operators, requesting for information to enable the terminal operators to operate according to the concession agreement. The committee chairman said efforts of members of the committee were meant to ensure that all revenue should be paid into government’s coffer for government to achieve its mandate.
He said that the committee would investigate deep into previous records of the terminal operators to ensure that nobody short-changed the government on revenue.
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