
The Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Nonye Ayeni on Monday disclosed that the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) had refused to pay the 10% freight levies due to NEPC since 1992.
Ayeni made this allegations at an investigative hearing organised by the House of Representatives Joint Committees on Commerce, Maritime Safety Education and Administration and Legislative Compliance in Abuja.
She alleged that “From 1992 NIMASA failed to pay any levies. Efforts to get them to pay the 10% freight levies yielded any fruitful results. Former President Muhammadu Buhari ordered them to pay, but they never responded.
“The Attorney General of the Federation also drew the attention of NIMASA to the payment, no compliance.
“We wrote to the Ministry of Finance, we still haven’t received any payment from NIMASA. The Nigerian Export Promotion Council has not been able to perform its statutory responsibilities because it is financially handicapped.
“So far, only 273 exports have been carried out. NEPC could have done more”.
In his defence, the Executive Director of Finance and Administration, NIMASA, Chudi Ofodile, who represented the director general said NIMASA, as an agency created by an established act of government, was consistently obeying government laws and that the act establishing NIMASA did not make provision for any 10% freight levies to be paid to NEPC.
“NIMASA, during its creation, did not inherit any liability from the Nigerian Maritime Authority (NMA) to be paid to NEPC.
“The NIMASA act is very clear. It does not indicate that any payment should be made to NEPC. Doing so is going against the law. ”
Ofodile said both NIMASA and NEPC were created by acts of parliament and called on the lawmakers to look at the provisions of the law regarding the agencies.
Earlier, while declaring open the investigation, Speaker Tajudeen Abbas described revenue generation as key to the economic growth of the country and should be treated with utmost urgency and all the attention it deserved.
The speaker, who was represented by the House Majority Leader, Julius Ihonvbere however, lamented that there was a growing concern about the flagrant disregard for invitations by some MDAs, describing such acts as disgraceful, disrespectful and abuse of power.
Lead Chairman of the joint committees, Ahmed Munir, in his opening remarks, said NEPC had been greatly made handicapped and had been unable to perform its statutory duties owing to none remittances of levies spanning decades, attributing this partly to the failure of the NIMASA to pay the ten per cent freight levies to NEPC.