BRIGHT EMEFIE

Indications were rife recently that the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation is set to compel Integrated Logistics Services Limited (INTELS) to remit about $200 million government in its custody into the designated Treasury Single Account (TSA).

But the port concessionaire is alleging that Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) owes it about $800 million, being the amount it spent on the construction of the Phase 4B, Onne Ports. NPA denied this, saying that it owes the company about $600 million. It however insisted that the company does not have the legal right to withhold the revenue it collected from port users on behalf of the Federal Government because of the so called debt.

INTELS, the concessionaire of the Federal Ocean Terminal and Federal Lighter Terminal, Nigeria’s foremost Oil and Gas logistics port, is alleged to be operating in violation to the Federal Government directive on TSA, by withholding some of the revenues it collected for the government.

Meanwhile, we learnt that aside the AGF’s office, the alleged non-compliance to TSA by the company, has attracted the attention of the National Assembly. A development our correspondent learnt, has also created a sharp division among some top government functionaries and lawmakers, even as some of them on one hand have insisted that the company must remit all government monies, others backed the port operator, saying government have to repay the company for its expanses on the construction of the Phase 4B Onne Ports.

Sources at the upper legislative chamber of the National Assembly, disclosed that lawmakers in the senate are divided into two camps. Some were alarmed to discover that such huge amounts of the Federal Government’s revenue are being withheld by the company.

The unremitted funds to NPA represent rents, lease and throughput fees in Onne and Warri ports where the company operates including revenue collected from service boat operations.

Between 2010 and 2016, the company reportedly remitted only about $300 million from the service boat collection which represents about 30 per cent of total service boats revenue it collected for NPA.

For service boat revenue collection, INTELS collected over $1 billion between 2010 and 2016.

A lawmaker, who spoke on condition of anonymity at the weekend, queried the rationale behind a private company warehousing Federal Government’s funds and allegedly spending from it.

He said aside from being unlawful, the practise could lead to fraud as it took rigorous scrutiny to be discovered.

”They have no right keeping government monies in their accounts. If they have spent from it without due appropriation and recourse to budgetary provision, we will get them to pay for it. There will be no compromise on that” he said.

THEMOMENTNG learnt that INTELS recently increased rent for some of its third party tenants from N30 million to N100 million, a move observes believed it was in an effort to raise monies belonging to NPA. This caused some of the tenant companies to threaten a pull out from the Federal Ocean Terminal and Federal Lighter Terminal, Onne.

Managing Director of NPA, Hadiza Bala Usman had late last year raised the alarm over the withheld funds, saying under her watch, NPA management will not compromise on the TSA policy.

Usman also insisted that all payments from lease and other contracts to NPA agreed upon in United States Dollar terms will not be changed to Naira and must be paid into the TSA.

This medium learnt that under an amortization deal between INTELS and NPA, Phase 4 Onne Port Expansion Programme was repaid at a sum amounting to over $400 million have been fully amortized by NPA.

But the Phase 4B with a contract sum of about $2.7 billion for which INTELS has allegedly been spending NPA funds has not been fully completed and repaid for by the NPA.

Some senators observed that the volume of funds being expended on the ongoing Phase 4b was unnecessary as the facility is not urgently in need to receive ship cargoes.

Expending scarce government funds on a project that is not of utmost priority at a time funds are needed for other critical areas of national development has been viewed as economically unwise by the Office of Accountant General of the Federation and observers.

They noted that the existing cargoes coming through Onne Port are not up to 50 per cent of the port’s capacity thereby making the Phase 4B facility expansion a less urgent investment.

It was however revealed at the weekend that the company may have mounted pressure on the legislators to input the company’s debt of $700 million with NPA into the authority’s 2017 budget. This move may have increased pressure on some lawmakers who appear to favour the company’s demands.

THEMOMENTNG was told that the company obtained loans in respect of some of the contractual agreements it had with NPA of which inside sources at the ports authority told our correspondent that the loans were obtained without the authority ascertaining the conditions and interest payable on the funds which NPA is required to offset.

The company was said to have remitted only 20 per cent of the revenue it collected for service boat on behalf of NPA while 80 per cent of the collected sum have been withheld for payment of contracts awarded and 28 per cent being agency commission to INTELS for service boat collection.

NPA’s deals with INTELS includes land lease, managing agent for monitoring and collection of revenue from service boats operations in all pilotage districts, development of port infrastructure in Onne, Rivers State and Bull Nose Apapa Lagos. The company is also a concessionaire and a leading terminal operator in the maritime industry.

Nigeria we hail thee. God tale control of all our adversaries.

Atiku should release government's money.

Can you imagine claiming to have spent close to a billion dollars on construction?

chai