Abubakar Dantsoho, the newly appointed Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), outlined his primary objectives for the agency, emphasizing increased productivity and efficiency to boost revenue generation for both the authority and the country.
Speaking at the handover ceremony at the NPA headquarters in Lagos, Dantsoho highlighted the importance of enhancing efficiency, reducing costs, and improving the overall user experience at the ports.
“Our main goal is to reposition the organization for increased productivity and greater efficiency for improved revenue generation to the authority and country,” Dantsoho stated. “We must rise to the intense competition we face from our neighbors, work tirelessly to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance the overall user experience in our ports.”
Dantsoho stressed the importance of collaboration and teamwork to achieve these goals. He also assured staff of a focus on welfare, including timely payment of salaries, compensation, and addressing training and capacity development needs for employees who add value in their roles.
Dantsoho mentioned that the NPA will continue its digital transformation and strengthen efforts to deploy the port community system (PCS), which is key to automating processes and eliminating leakages and corruption. Additionally, the authority will focus on the logistics of cargo arrival, handling, and evacuation along the port corridor, as well as infrastructure renewal and development.
“We will reward hard work and develop leadership for the future stability of the NPA,” Dantsoho said. “We will continue the digital transformation of the authority and reinforce the current efforts at deploying the port community system (PCS) which we believe is key to our dream of total automation of our processes, thereby eliminating leakages and corruption. The current efforts towards infrastructure renewal and development will be enhanced, particularly port rehabilitation and modernization.”
During the ceremony, outgoing NPA MD Mohammed Bello-Koko reported record revenue and remittance to the consolidated revenue fund (CRF). He stated that revenue generation increased from N501 billion in 2023 to N541 billion in the first half of 2024. Remittances to the CRF also rose from N93.4 billion in 2022 to N206 billion in 2023, and further to N255 billion in the first half of 2024, marking unprecedented growth.
Bello-Koko praised President Bola Tinubu’s administration for its support, noting that his tenure had improved NPA’s efficiency, revenue generation, accountability, and adherence to international best practices in port management and operations. He expressed confidence that the new management team would continue this positive trajectory.
“My sense of fulfillment derives from the fact that we have achieved a lot and have made the authority far better than we met it, and now handing over to a management team of distinguished professionals with the requisite character, competence, and capacity to sustain and indeed surpass the current performance trajectory,” Bello-Koko concluded. He also emphasized the need for Nigeria to learn from the mistakes and successes of others to ensure national progress.
