Hajia Hadiza Bala Usman Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) was last January re-appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari for a second term in office. Her re-appointment is an endorsement of capacity, integrity, efficiency, a commitment to the ease of doing business policy of the Federal Government, and a metric for measuring exceptional Nigerians beyond just the passport and NIN.
The great challenge of people in Leadership, especially those with intensive responsibility, is how to innovate in productive processes and implement ideas and new technologies that will lead Nigeria to increase its productivity so the country is in line with the world’s highest standards. This is important to Hadiza, to leave “a better society” for future generations and also to respond to “the growing interest of NPA investors and ports users in responsible businesses. Her dynamism and management skills have given NPA a lot of agility these days.
Since the 2005 Ports Reform when the NPA adopted the landlord model of business while allowing investors and terminal operators to roll business, the roles of the NPA have been to ensure that the vessels coming are able to navigate through the channels and come on the berth, and to ensure that the cargos are offloaded efficiently from the vessels unto the terminal. But since that time political influence has not really allowed NPA leadership to perform optimally until the appointment of Hajia Bala Usman. She too had a huge dose of pressure, but she did not yield, so she was left alone. She explains this in an interview.
“Pressure was huge in my first year, because the NPA was seen as a place where there were slush funds, available to all political machinery, and I refused to do that, I was under a lot of pressure by various arms of government, and after a while, they got used to it, and just stopped. But I have developed a reputation of being too stubborn, too difficult, by refusing to bend. After a while they let me be. I think people that are getting into political appointments, should stand their ground and maintain that things must be done the right way. It is going to be tough for the first year, but they would get used to that and leave you alone and move on to other areas.”
This ability to handle pressure is part of what has contributed to the success of Hajia Bala Usman. As a writer puts it “If not for any other thing, Bala Usman has in the past four years, been concerned with the entrenchment of transparency and the prioritization of national rather than class interests. If only for the hitherto untouchable forces that this lady has confronted and fought to a standstill, her re-appointment is not just worthy but an example of a nation’s appreciation of service.”
Port stakeholders across the board are happy over her re-appointment. They talk glowingly about her bold reforms, which have restored investors’ confidence in the maritime industry and the economy at large. They thank President Muhammadu Buhari for re-appointing her for an additional five-year tenure
The Chairman of the Nigeria Port Consultative Forum, Mr. Kunle Folarin stated that the federal government is aware of the drive-by Bala-Usman to ensure that the right thing is done at all times, adding that with what she has achieved, the port will in no time serve as an alternative to crude oil in terms of revenue generation.
“The first thing is that in the last four years, the port has been recognized as the alternative source of income to the federal government apart from oil. Hadiza came and identify all the loopholes in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of the various agreements signed by the NPA over the years and she stopped them. It takes courage to do all those things. There are some contracts where the agency was paying about $400 million; she stopped it and somebody in the authority must have allowed all that before she came but she blocked all the loopholes.
“These are people that were thought to be very influential but she stopped it. She almost stopped the INTELS contract that gave Pilotage to a private company, which is the responsibility of NPA under the act. Hadiza is someone who has the courage to stop illegalities, which have been going on for a long time. In Nigeria today, courage is key, and imagine if that had continued for another 10 years then several billions of Naira would have been lost.”
He added, “She did what others were scared of doing. Look at the issue of access to the port when she came in which have refused to go away and she introduced badging to solve the problem. So, she has done very well and deserves the support of everyone.”
Stanley Ezenga, the National Public Relations Officer, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), commends her for her initiatives.
“Since Hadiza was appointed, she instituted a lot of reforms in the agency and in the industry. She has stopped a lot of corrupt practices in the sector and I can categorically tell you that she merited her position.” Ezenga says.
Mr. Tony Iju Nwabunike the National President of the National Association of Licensed Customs Agents (ANALCA), commended her boldness. He praises President Muhammadu Buhari for recognizing excellence and hard work, which h has restored investors’ confidence in the maritime sector.
“If you look at the amount of work Hadiza has done, given that people never gave her a chance and she came and turned around things, it was a good move by the president to appoint her in the first place. Again, it is to finish the good work she has started in NPA. At ANALCA, we will continue to support her; we are going to give her the platform for her to do more.”
The Director-General of the Nigeria Chamber of Shipping (NCS), Mrs. Obiageli Obi said Hadiza Bala- Usman has achieved what was thought to be impossible in the industry. She thanks President Buhari on behalf of the NCS for supporting her initiatives, she stated that she is confident that the NPA boss will continue to do more.
“I am happy that Bala-Usman is bold and has a passion for the maritime sector. Investors are happy with her reforms and the Nigerian economy will greatly benefit from her reforms.”
Indeed she has turned the NPA around and entrenched transparency and accountability. Then her crusade against entrenched interests working against the interests of the Federal Government and the NPA. But this was not an easy task. Initially, she was constantly put under so much pressure by politicians and the well-connected, demanding or trying to force her to compromise her position regarding compliance. That was a big challenge. She was able to overcome that with the support of President Buhari. This is because the President has been quite supportive of the reforms being done in the NPA.
“I always would say, having a leader that does not interfere in getting you to compromise your position is an integral part of the success of any head of government agency.”
She launched many initiatives to increase NPA’s clout over stakeholders about how the right things should be done, in a country where politicians, policymakers, and powerful public officials historically have wielded the most influence over the leadership of the NPA and opinion leaders. Commendably, the results of Usman’s offensive in this area have been encouraging, and NPA’s prospects for improving Nigeria’s regional soft power are quite clear. Her concerns are the need to make the ports efficient and also to draw more traffic to Nigerian ports by making them more competitive to importers. In this way, ports activities can earn more revenue to government purse.
Her ensuring the abolition of illegal levies at the ports will make the country’s ports more competitive to importers. This will make them use Nigerian ports rather than those of neighboring countries like Togo and Benin. When the African Free Trade Zone Agreement (AfCTA) finally take-off, this will create dramatic growth in trade and investment relations between Nigeria and other African countries. And it will translate into a significant expansion of Abuja’s influence over the region’s political economy, media, and civil society.
Take a look at Hajia Bala Usman records in the past four years and see some of what she has achieved.
First, her biggest task has to do with restoring global investors’ confidence and public confidence in the NPA and Nigerian ports operations. This begins with port efficiency so that cargoes are promptly cleared and evacuated from the ports by shippers. The challenges here are enormous. To overcome the challenge of bureaucratic and chaotic clearance of cargoes, the NPA is working, in collaboration with Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), to develop the operational framework for establishing the National Single Window, Ports Community System and Scanning services.
This is aimed at simplifying and harmonizing formalities, procedures, and the related exchange of information and documents between the various agencies in the port operations value chain. Next comes the second leg of this need to restore investors’ confidence in the Nigerian ports industry. This involves the issue of deep seaport projects. The concerted efforts in this particular area have produced remarkable outcomes with the recent signing of a loan agreement of US$629 million by Singaporean conglomerate Tolaram Group and the China Development Bank for the development of the Lekki Deep Seaport project.
Secondly, she positioned the NPA for better performance financially, contributing hugely to the Consolidated Revenue Funds (CRF). Under her watch, NPA’s contributions to the Revenue Funds shot up significantly. When she has first appointed it, NPA made a contribution of about N18 billion. But it remitted N30 billion in 2017, N30 billion in 2018. This is a huge difference between what used to be and what she had achieved. How was she able to do this, achieving an increase in revenue?
Hajia Bala Usman was able to achieve this through prudent management of resources. She worked to block revenue leakages, ensuring that Nigerian ports demand payments from any third-party contractor or any contractual relationship that requires remittance. These are some of the things she has put in place, actively observing NPA’s debt collections. Then she set targets for the port managers to ensure they collect the debts that are owed to Nigerian ports in each of the port locations.
The third was the de-classification of port terminals which removed the categorization of some ports as strictly oil and gas. Until that de-classification was done oil and gas cargo could only berth in specific locations in Nigeria. Expectedly this caused a lot of disaffection. Some terminal operators, namely Berger and LADOL protested and threatened to go to court. But with Usman’s decision, the NPA has created a level playing field for all operators in the port industry by removing all bottlenecks that hinder healthy competition in the industry.
Fourth, Hajia Bala Usman is making noticeable efforts on deep seaports. This is coupled with the need to increase traffic to the eastern ports, improve infrastructure in all port locations, ease traffic access into all the ports, and ultimately develop deep seaports in the country.
So she is also working toward having deep seaports in the country. Generally, deep seaports are the future. They are ports that are 17, 18 meters draft. She believes that is where Nigeria’s ports need to be. “So, why would you invest to dredge a channel to 10 meters, when the world channels are been built to 17 meters draft. So we should focus on getting deep-sea ports in the country, and those other ports could be used for other activities; probably for fishing or smaller vessels that come in. So, that investment cannot be justified when the future is 17 meters.” She said in an interview.
The fifth thing she has done is her effort in the area of intermodal transport, ensuring that different transport modes are used to evacuate cargoes from the ports. Generally, Nigeria operates a port system without much intermodality. Thus all the cargos are evacuated by road. This means million gross registered tonnages of cargo that have come into Nigeria would go on the road, with less than five percent of it going on the rails. The result immediately translates into congestion and gridlock around the Apapa port area in Lagos. And as intermodal transportation is key and that is what NPA is doing, BalaUsman is working with the Rt Hon Rotimi Amaechi and the Ministry of Transportation, Nigerian Railway; on installing rail lines right inside the port locations, right to the key side.
The sixth thing is Port’s concession review issue. This is another area of action for her. She put her feet on the ground over the issue of ports concession review which has been on for some time before she came into office, ensuring that ports operators play by the rules of the game. And one of the important things that NPA really has put in is sanctioning and the penalty for both sides- the landlord, NPA, and its tenants-the port operators.
“For example, for NPA, if we do not meet up with our obligation on dredging, or on certain deployments, there are measures that we would automatically be sanctioned, so it takes away subjectivity. Hitherto there wasn’t any measure of sanctioning on both sides.” Says the MD.
So if the NPA doesn’t dredge, or doesn’t provide marine services, or other of its obligations, there would be clear sanctions. The same goes for the terminal operators. If they also do not provide the level of equipment required, if they don’t do their development plans as stipulated, there would be clear sanctions. And that takes away any ambiguity and subjectivity by the head of the NPA.
With this port concession review, Hajia Bala Usman has been able to strategically handled port operators, ensuring that they comply with the terms of leasing NPA has given them. Credit goes to this woman over the clever way she has handled these port concessionaires so far.
In 2019, the NPA decommissioned the BUA Ports and Terminals Limited, operator of terminal B, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. This was because BUA had a concession that it signed with the NPA, but it failed to honor its own part of the deal. It is part of the concession in 2006. According to ports insider, part of the agreement was that the company required to build and rehabilitate a berth within the terminal. The time required to do that was 90 days. BUA did not embark on that reconstruction for 10 years
Another action she has taken is her resolve on accountability third-party stakeholders. Her commitment to ensuring that all third-party contracts with terms underground terms to swindle Nigeria’s interest is corrected. Then her hatred for a government agency that cheats investors. She states in her interviews that reviewing agreements with investors must put measurable responsibility and sanctions on both parties, that is government and investors alike. This is a great way to assure investors of the safety of their investment.
These included the cancelation of the $133.28 million Secured Anchorage Area (SAA) deal operated by Ocean Marine Solutions Limited (OMSL). She also dealt with the failure of Intels to remit monies accruing from service boat operations to the TSA as directed by the federal government. For this, the NPA has been at odds with Intels for the better part of the last four years, and even though the latter has tried all sorts of blackmail, alleging that NPA action was motivated by politics. Bala Usman always insisted that there was nothing political about obeying the laws of the country and that no entity would be allowed to impose its will on Nigeria. She also tackled APMT over its inefficiency that often creates congestion at the ports. By prioritization of national interests along with noticeable efforts being made to increase traffic to the eastern ports, by working to remove unnecessary charges in order to ensure cost reduction for investors, improve infrastructure in all port locations, by ensuring ease of traffic access into all the ports and ultimately develop deep seaports in the country, Hajia Bala Usman has restored investors’ confidence in the Nigerian port system while also ensuring that they, too adhere strictly to the rule of law while operating their businesses in the country. Thus she is changing the face of port operations in Nigeria. As the D-General NCS Mrs. Obiageli Obi has observed “ Investors are happy with her reforms and the Nigerian economy will greatly benefit from the reforms.”