Daily Trust’s serialized investigation into contract racketeering at the Nigerian Ports Authority invites curiosity. On September 20, the newspaper brought to national attention the long-practised politics of hiring service boat operations monitoring agents by the organization, and revealed an estimated loss of over N58 billion that ought to have been accrued to the federation account in just four pilot districts in the past year.
For a country gasping for revenues to stabilize its disintegrating economy and finance its internal security compromise, the bureaucratic stalemate that enabled such loss could only have happened for two reasons: one, the inadequacy of oversights by the federal government and, two, the overriding presence of vested interests in the procurement process. Either reason is a damning indictment of the policymakers persistently on a junket around the world to beg for loans.
The lingering dilemma has already led to a threat of legal action by four boat operations service agents, which are responsible for providing logistics support to docked ships and their crews, including supplies of fuel, food and other essential needs. In mid October, these four companies raised an alarm, which was reported by Daily Trust: thirty two companies, it was revealed, participated in the pre-qualification bid, and four were selected. But that’s not the problem. The stalemate was attributed to the reappearance of INTELS, which had participated in the vastly contested pre-qualification bid but was disqualified for violation of the Public Procurement Act.
INTELS maintained a monopoly in providing the NPA with monitoring boats services between 2007 and 2020, and the chaos in re-awarding the contract after its expiration has been a frontline political debate since then. This trouble began when NPA slashed the commission due to contracted agents from 28% to 15% of all revenues collected and, thus, upset INTELS, which collected 28% of total accruals as agency commission throughout the 13-year-long contract. This, again, doesn’t seem to be the problem now.
The problem, and that’s the elephant in the room, tends to be the seeming disconnect between the Presidency and the Ministry of Transportation. While President Muhammadu Buhari, according to Daily Trust, “had earlier approved that the outcome of the tender process in the award of the service boat monitoring agent contract, as submitted by the NPA, be forwarded to the Bureau of Public Procurement for no objection and consequently forwarded to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for approval,” the Rotimi Amaechi-led Ministry rolled out a different plan, and the contradiction is what seems to be the cause of this costly stalemate.
NPA, according to reports, has been instructed by the Ministry of Transport to have the contract between it and INTELS restored despite the presidential approval of the pre-qualification bidding in which INTELS wasn’t a part. In fact, the company reportedly violated one of the criteria advertised and was disqualified from the bid. So, it’s curious that INTELS is being asked to resume its pilotage function even having failed to meet the criteria set and leaving the fate of the four prequalified companies hanging in the air.
What’s unfolding, unfortunately, seems to be the fear of the Director-General of the Bureau for Public Procurement, Mamman Ahmadu, in a memo to President Buhari’s Chief of Staff on the contract racketeering. “There is a compelling need to ensure that contractors and service providers do not take undue advantage of government agencies,” he said, and that the bidding companies must also not be allowed to “obtain contracts from government agencies through the courtrooms.”
Whatever interests that have frustrated the award of this contract are either political or personal. The country has been shortchanged for too long, for these past thirteen months, and it calls for heightened civic vigilance to disrupt the conspiracy around it or seek open explanations of the root cause from all parties. Mr. Amaechi couldn’t have refused to adhere to the dictate of the presidency without any reason, and the pessimistic caution of the BPP boss sounds like a cry for help.
This rectangle of differences that have cost Nigeria these many billions is a malignant symptom of a disease that isn’t being adequately addressed by the public, that legally defined procurement process could be summarily overridden to pacify a personal, political or corporate interest—and that’s a plausible theory so far. If there was no sincere intention to have the contract won through the advertised pre-qualification bidding process, of which four companies have already emerged, what’s the point of the process at all? In fact, what’s the essence of BPP itself?
Nigerians aren’t the only victims of this year-long stalemate, the companies that endured the rigours of the procurement process are victims too, and they have a valid reason to approach the court to seek legal interference for being so openly undermined. The bureaucracy is designed to ensure and drive the due process, not this pursuit of vested interests that have come at an unpardonable cost.
NPA has been Nigeria’s lifeline, and one of its few most reliable sources of revenues that shouldn’t be sabotaged by any form of interest. Between 2017 and 2019, the Onne pilotage alone generated N98.2billion for Nigeria while, between 2014 and 2018, the Warri pilotage area generated N116.3 billion. The Calabar pilotage area also generated N644.5 million for the country in the period reviewed by Daily Trust. Such a national cash cow should be the last victim of any form of antagonistic or aggressive procurement process, especially amidst this forex crisis and the national decline in revenue sources.
It’s ironic, though, that we have a government that tours the world to beg for money to finance infrastructure while multi-billion Naira business operations are wasting away on its shores. The explanation for this stalemate is either Mr. Amaechi misled the presidency on the status of the pilotage contract being bidden, and for which four companies have already been shortlisted for the final bidding process, or these vested interests are being prioritized over the nation’s economic stability. But, seriously, whose interests are being protected?
