NPA clears air on alleged operation of 2 USD secret accounts

By Olivia Nnorom.

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has said it operates two US dollar-denominated domiciliary accounts duly approved by the Federal Government and transparently run in accordance with agreed official safeguards put in place by the office of the Accountant General of the Federation through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy of the federal government.

The NPA said this while responding to online claims that it operates two fraudulent secret accounts abroad.

Ibrahim Nasiru, NPA spokesman, said the management’s initial disposition was to dismiss the “both false and malicious” news report on secrecy and diversion of funds. However, the compelling need to set the records straight and disabuse the minds of well-meaning and unsuspecting members of the various publics on the subject matter assumed prime consideration.

Speaking in a meeting on Tuesday, Nasiru said the Office of the Accountant General approved the NPA’s request to open a Zenith Bank and a Fidelity Bank account with their correspondent foreign banks as Citibank N.A in London and New York, respectively, for the purpose of collecting service boats pilotage revenue accruing to the NPA. This request, he said, was contained in a letter dated August 26, 2016 and was approved on February 13, 2017.

As at the time the request was made, NPA and the Integrated Logistics Service Limited (INTELS) had a management agency relationship from 1996 which gave INTELS the responsibility to monitor service boats operations and collect an agreed commission from its revenue on behalf of the NPA, Nasiru said.

The commission was in an agreement which both NPA and INTELS rely on to have access to the accounts’ inflow, for ease of reconciliation and to be able to determine online real-time amounts paid by clients and the value of invoice to send to the NPA for payment of their management services, he said.

Furthermore, on a monthly basis, there were hundreds of payments for service boat operations directly into INTELS bank accounts. INTELS in turn periodically remitted a portion of the collected revenue to the NPA and retained a significant portion of commission on collection of revenue and cost of Onne phase 4B expansion project through amortization in its vault, the NPA spokesman said.

This practice lasted a while until the management of the NPA considered it as being completely at variance with the requirements of Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy of government, which made it mandatory that all revenues accruing to all government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) must be remitted into one consolidated TSA account in the Central Bank.

“Management conducted a thorough review of the executed management agency agreement it entered into with INTELS and felt the urgent need to open revenue accounts dedicated to the collection of revenue from service boats operations based on certain parameters,” Nasiru said.

He listed some of the parameters as ensuring that government revenues no longer reside in the vaults of private operators or companies; to ensure seamless reconciliation of revenue collection from service boats operations as there were hundreds entries per month; and to enthrone accountability and transparency in the management of revenue generation and collection from service boats operations.

Others are to enhance prompt reconciliation of service boats revenue generation and collection, which will facilitate prompt payment of agency commission by the Authority to INTELS in a transparent manner; and the prompt remittance of the net revenue after deduction of agency commission into the Authority’s TSA sub-account in the CBN.

NPA management stated categorically that it was impossible to divert or privatise funds in the approved accounts as significant safeguards had been put in place by the Federal Government.

Nasiru cited various rules guiding the operation of the new accounts, including, “That the NPA will operate collection accounts only with two commercial banks to be designated as ‘Transit Account’;

“That balances in these accounts will be swept daily into the designated Treasury Single Account (TSA) Revenue Sub-Accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) or as mutually agreed by all parties;

“That on no account should withdrawals be made from these revenue accounts;

“That participatory banks and INTELS will write formally to the NPA to demand their collection charges on a monthly basis or as may have been agreed with them;

“That the NPA, upon due confirmation, reconciliation and necessary due diligence, will forward the request to the Office of the Account General of the Federation for payment to parties; and

“In case of further clarifications on this matter, the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation should be contacted, accordingly.”

Nasiru said there were additional checks mechanisms put in place with the banks to provide internet banking for the service boat revenue collection to enable “view-only” and printing capabilities of the statements of accounts by over 20 top management staff members of the NPA.

“With the explanations supra, the management hereby wishes to state that the specious report about two persons looting the NPA’s so-called secret accounts could not have been possible.

“We therefore wish to state that the current NPA management under the leadership of the Managing Director, Mr Mohammed Bello-Koko, is only aware of the approved USD-denominated domiciliary accounts as stated above and not aware of secret foreign accounts as indicated in the malicious online newspaper report,” Nasiru said.

The NPA management said it runs an open administration and gives premium to due process in the execution of its core mandates and urged Nigerians to take note of the management’s commitment to transparency in its financial transactions.