The Director General/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Ports Economic Regulatory Agency (NPERA), Dr. Pius Akutah, has ruled out inter-agency conflict over overlapping mandates, saying the law establishing the agency was jointly reviewed and endorsed by relevant government agencies before it was transmitted to the National Assembly.
Akutah made the disclosure when the executive members of the Maritime Correspondents’ Organisation of Nigeria (MARCON) paid a courtesy visit to him on Tuesday.
The assurance comes amid concerns raised in some quarters over possible conflicts between the new agency and existing maritime institutions.
According to him, the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, who understood the implications of overlapping mandates, had brought together the heads of relevant agencies, alongside the Permanent Secretary and Director of Legal Services of the ministry, to scrutinise the proposed law.
The document was reviewed “paragraph by paragraph, line by line, word by word”, with the participating agencies agreeing on the provisions that should be retained or amended.
Akutah stated that the heads of the agencies subsequently signed every page of the agreed version before it was submitted to the minister, who prepared a cover note and forwarded it to the National Assembly.
He noted that the version eventually passed by the National Assembly was the version presented by the ministry after the joint review, stressing that there should therefore be no basis for an institutional crisis.
“There is no room for any crisis between agencies.”
Akutah maintained that the heads of the various institutions are concerned about the development of the maritime sector and willing to work together to achieve the desired changes.
He rejected the idea of agencies engaging in turf protection, arguing that government institutions belong to the Nigerian state and not the individuals occupying offices at any particular time.
Akutah said the agencies had, since the passage of the law, continued to engage one another and pledged to work collectively, stressing that the emergence of NPERA should not be viewed as one agency seeking to conquer another.
He urged stakeholders to focus on building stronger institutions rather than stronger individuals, warning that rivalry and the protection of institutional territories could weaken government institutions and ultimately hurt the country.
The NPERA boss also linked the need for stronger collaboration among agencies to the Federal Government’s ambition of building a $1 trillion economy by 2030, with non-oil exports playing a major role.
He called on the media to promote accurate understanding of the new regulatory framework rather than create fear or confusion around the relationship between NPERA and other maritime agencies.
