THERE are Indications that the management of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, may have boycotted the visit of the Senate Committee on Marine Transport, despite two weeks notification of the visit.
The Senate Committee on Marine Transport, weekend, paid an oversight visit to the agency over 2014 budget, but was surprised to witness the absence of the Managing Director, Mallam Habib Abdullahi, only to be represented by the Executive Director, Finance & Administration, Mr. Olumide Oduntan .
This is even as the committee vowed not to pass the agency’s 2014 budget until the agency had satisfactorily revealed to it all ongoing projects and their stages.
A visibly angry Senate Committee Chairman on Marine Transport, Hajia Zaynab Kure, expressed her shock at the shabby way the NPA managing director handled their statutory oversight visit to the agency, which she tagged a sign of disrespect to her and other members of the committee.
Senator Kure said: “On behalf of my distinguished colleagues, I want to express my disappointment and displeasure, and of course, embarrassment at your MD’s inability to receive an esteemed committee made up of distinguished Senators that have come on an oversight function to NPA.
“This honourable committee wrote about two weeks ago to NPA that we are coming on a constitutional and statutory assignment. If for any reason the MD, who must have received the letter, knew he won’t be around to receive us, he should have written back to us that he has another assignment that he feels is much more important than receiving this committee.
“But there was no communication. I only got a call from the NPA MD on my way to the airport, by which time all my other colleagues have even boarded the aircraft, informing me that he won’t be able to receive us.
“I did not tell my other colleagues because I thought that if I had done that, I won’t be doing justice to what has brought us here. I wanted everybody to come and see things for themselves. Except for one of us, every other member of this committee is here for this oversight visit.
“But for us to get here and the MD is not here, I must tell you that the committee is seriously disappointed and we are not happy at all. We want you to communicate same to your MD.
“We know that you are working as a team but the MD has no right, whatsoever, to have treated us the way we are treated today. We should have known that he won’t be here and would have possibly rescheduled our trip.”
Corroborating her, another member of the committee, Senator Ben Ayade, described the action of the NPA MD as an absolute disrespect to the National Assembly.
“I feel highly compromised. I think there is an absolute disrespect for the National Assembly. This conduct is deliberate. I find it very insulting.
On the passage of the 2014 budget of the NPA, Senator Kure disclosed that the committee came down to Lagos to see things for itself before passing the budget.
Source: Vanguard
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