T<\/span>he<\/strong> Nigerian Ports Authority said on Thursday that revenue on car importation into the country dropped by 20 percent this year, a fallout of the Federal Government\u2019s Automobile Policy.<\/p>\n

The Managing Director, NPA, Hadiza Bala-Usman, revealed this to the House of Representatives Committee on Ports, Harbours\/Waterways when she\u00a0appeared before the committee to speak on the Internally Generated Revenue of the NPA for 2017 and the projections for this year.<\/p>\n

Bala-Usman told the house committee which is chaired by a lawmaker from Enugu State, Mr Pat Asadu, that contrary to the government\u2019s expectations, the policy had not achieved its objectives, while on the other hand, the agency continued to lose revenue that would have ordinarily accrued from car importation.<\/p>\n

She said that the revenue dip was a bad omen for the government\u2019s overall revenue take and called for the urgent review of the policy in order to reduce the losses.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The automobile policy was introduced by the government to encourage local car production\/ assembly plants while cutting importation and raising import duties.<\/p>\n

The Punch\u00a0also reported\u00a0Bala-Usman to have said, \u201cWe have written Mr. President on this policy and we will continue to defend our position that it (policy) should be reviewed because the government runs the risk of losing both ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have recorded a drop in revenue by 20 percent. How many cars are being manufactured and how many Nigerians can really afford to buy brand new cars?<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the implication is that while the government is losing revenue on importation, the manufacturing or assembly plants are not achieving the aims of the policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Managing Director of\u00a0the NPA also\u00a0stated that while projected IGR for 2017 was N278.5bn, the actual amount generated was N288.6bn, while the overall income of the agency for the year was N302.9bn.<\/p>\n

On the budget for operations, she said while the projected figure was N96.4bn, the actual performance was N84.6bn.<\/p>\n

Bala-Usman also informed the committee that the N174bn budgeted for capital projects had a 53.5 percent performance (N114.3bn).<\/p>\n

For 2018, the NPA has projected N292bn as its IGR, but as much as N232bn will go into recurrent expenditure.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers queried the NPA\u2019s capital expenditure-to-personnel cost ratio of 55 percent to 44 percent, describing it as unacceptable.<\/p>\n

For instance, Asadu stated that the committee expected the NPA to have a lean personnel cost, owing to the various port reforms aimed at cutting waste.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are supposed to spend less on personnel cost because of the port reforms and concessions. Why is your personnel cost so high? Forty-four percent, compared to the 55 percent of your capital implementation?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

But, Bala-Usman replied that she inherited a system in the NPA that promoted employees to higher positions, who were not paid their dues.<\/p>\n

She stated, \u201cIn fact, because of this problem, people did not want to be promoted. When you were promoted, your salary was reduced.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to clear this backlog and there are more members of staff to be promoted. This explains the changes in the personnel cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee later suspended consideration of her submissions to give lawmakers more time to study the documents she tendered.<\/p>\n

\n
• With reports from Punch<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  .<\/p>\n

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