Bello-Koko: Aiming to Make Nigerian Seaports Most Efficient in Africa

The quest to achieve seamless port operations in Nigeria is undoubtedly a daunting challenge, but the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mohammed Bello-Koko, is unruffled. His optimism is hinged on the emphasis placed on staff welfare, automation and dedication, which would provide the cushion to accomplish this ideal. In this exclusive interview with Eromosele Abiodun, Bello-Koko listed some of the achievements recorded in his first 100 days in office to include the rehabilitation and inauguration of the Port Training School (PTS), remittance of N45.08 billion to CRF, furnishing and equipping of control towers (LPC and TCIP), deployment of newly-acquired pilot cutters and patrol boats to the Eastern ports, establishment and licencing of 10 export processing terminals, acquisition and deployment of motorcycles to monitor and enforce traffic regulations along the Apapa corridor and many more. Excerpts!

The NPA recently announced a massive improvement in revenue collection with the Authority remitting a whooping N45.08 billion to the CRF. Our readers will like to know what you have done differently that made this feat possible.
Thanks. The first thing we did was to improve the collection mechanism and I said it before that we hold the port managers responsible for revenue generation and we are holding regular virtual meetings. But what we now did was to tell our clients that they needed to pay us on time, pay us or we withdraw their services, and then we minimised cost. Cost minimisation was very key. So, it means if you reduce cost, you are increasing the likely surplus that you will transfer to CRF. We did not minimise cost in areas that were relevant and necessary. We cut down on expense heads we felt (in this year) we needed to slow down spending on.

So, we started by prioritising more. We have always prioritised, but there is more prioritisation this time around. Also, we paid attention to spending on things that will also increase revenue, things that would endear the ports to  users. Consequently, there is less debt now than it used to be because we are all getting personally involved in terms of collection. The NNPC was owing the NPA almost N30 Billion   and this month we forced them to pay 7 Billion. The NNPC has this 50 per cent rebate and then you  we do periodic reconciliation and then they pay. Since 2019, NNPC had not actually paid us, but we have pushed them and decided that they have to pay, or we will stop service.

We have become more aggressive, holding regular meetings and there are no formalities, you just pick up the phone and call the port managers and say where is the money. Same with The JV the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) has,  those that are actually operating the fields have been owing us and we made it clear to NPDC that they need to pay. Some of them just paid and the IOCs have not been paying for so long, Chevron and co. So we have made it very clear that they have  to pay and in time . And  we have become more aggressive in our revenue collection. We have blocked leakages.
In the months ahead, the NPA will remit more revenue to the Federal Government when the Lekki Deep Sea Port takes off.

Let us take a look at the Lekki Port and how it is going to enhance revenue and boost port efficiency
What is most likely to happen is that some of the cargoes that currently come into Lagos Apapa port and Tin Can port will move to Lekki.  What I am technically saying is that it is the same cargo that is moving, but what we expect in the first two to three months when they start operations is that some of the cargoes we have been losing to ports in neighbouring countries will start coming here, and that is where the increase would come from. And once Lekki port starts operation , everyone will see that they are more efficient, which means that they have the capacity to become a hub.

We have also started discussions with them in terms of applicable tariffs especially for transit cargo. For any port to be a viable transit port or a hub,  any cost, if not carefully watched, would make it unattractive. Therefore, we are working with them to ensure that there is a minimum charge that would encourage someone that has cargo going to the Benin Republic or other counties to bring it here before trans-shipping it to any other country. So we expect that increase not immediately, but maybe three months after they start operations because of the larger capacity they have and also because of other transit cargo they would be handling.

How soon will the Lekki Deep Seaport be coming on stream?
Their cranes are actually arriving this June and they would install them and their target of September, I think is still feasible. So, the first test-run will be in September and commercial vessels will be used to test-run. We are already constructing the 80 Bullard pull Tug boats that would be necessary for use  in that location and other marine vessels that are needed there.

How much of a change will this Lekki Port bring about in terms of cargo and efficiency?
The first thing is that the Lekki port will be the first port that is fully automated with little human interference in terms of port operations, that’s is documentation, cargo clearing etc. .
 They have also created an office where you do your documentation and everything in a separate location just outside the actual port . They have locations for reefer and containers for perishable goods. And for the first time in Nigeria, we are going to have a port that is going to have ship to shore cranes that can at once load or offload 20 to 40 containers on one movement instead of picking them one by one or two  by two.  You see, that is efficiency. Less ship waiting time, improved berth occupancy.

Also, the kind of vessels they would be bringing in are larger in size meaning they would pay more, the economies of scale will naturally set in and it also means that the cost of doing business at that port for importers and exporters will be lower. They will be handling containers, General cargo  and eventually Liquid bulk cargo in that location. Employment will be created and there will be boost in economic activities.
The game-changing aspect of it here is that every other terminal operators now have real competition because as an importer, I will rather go to a port where I will get my goods out quickly because the port has new equipment, better efficiency and automation and from my bedroom, I can transact with them and go and pick my container whenever it is ready.

 What changes also is that these terminal operators are now having discussions with NPA & FMOT on how to rehabilitate Apapa and Tin Can ports to also ensure that they can compete favourably with Lekki. But finally, what will change is turning that place into a hub because they have both liquid bulk, general cargo and containers and they are very serious about what they are doing and they are also in a free zone, which is an added advantage in terms of reduction in cost.

Recently, you moved around some of the Eastern ports as part of your efforts to turn around activities at those ports. Can you also give us an update and tell us about your efforts to meet stakeholders’ expectations?
One of the things we have done  along with the FMOT is to hold stakeholder meetings, which took place in Port Harcourt. We have been engaging stake holders . The essence here is to let people understand that it is not just Lagos ports we have and psychologically, I do not know why people just think the only ports we have are in Lagos. People need to understand that we have ports in the East and they are operational. So apart from selling the ports to them, it’s also to encourage them to import and export through the other ports, we have to make sure that the ports are also operational.

So, if you take only Delta port and the main issue with it, is the collapsed breakwater, and I am very sure that very soon, the design for reconstruction and rehabilitation of the breakwater will be ready. It collapsed about 10 years ago. They have been doing the bathmetiric and other studies and these studies will soon be ready. But the first thing is to also ensure that we do remedial dredging from the fairway bouy the entrance of rhe breaker and further to the warri port, which the Federal Government approved, and it is already ongoing at 80 per cent. They will soon finish it and when they finish, that means we will be able to maintain that 7- 7.5m draught that has always been there. Because siltation was so high because of the collapse of the breakwater, some locations locations  around the channel was about 5m which makes it quite difficult navigate .

We were having many cases of vessels going aground which made it difficult for vessels to maneuver or come to port unless on high tide and there is something that they call nip tide that for almost a week, the tide will not come up. So, we were depending on when tide is high. Apart from that, channel has not been mapped properly and surveyed. What we have been surveying probably once in a while is from the fairway  buoy to the Warri Port, but there is a lot of marine activity and businesses from the fairway buoy to Koko and Sapele. All those places have not been marked for probably over a decade.

The essence here is for us to understand the drafts in that location and work towards either dredging it. Something has to be done and by that way, you make those places more viable and there are so many tank farms there that are in need of deeper draught for them to bring bigger vessels and I believe that there are locations there that can be used for marine logistics. It is a very viable location. We have also very recently deployed more marine crafts boats to that location. We have a third party towage company we have asked to bring in more tug boats to provide towage in order to make it easier for vessels coming in.

We are working with the Nigerian Navy to help us secure our signal stations because communication is very important. Pilots that are bringing in vessels to that location need to have very good communication and that channel is very long, which is about over 100km from the fairway buoy to the ports and it maneuvers from left to right and the Nigerian Navy has actually agreed that we should locate some of our signal stations close to areas of their operations and very close to them for security reasons.

We are also deploying navigational aids in that location. Although we have high incidences of vandalisim of the buoys in the water. These are markers that guide the pilots. They are mostly vandalised by communities. But we are deploying new sets of buoys to ensure safety of navigations. So by doing this, more shipping lines, more shipping pilots, more pilots will be willing to bring vessels to that location and the same thing with Calabar. In Calabar, we are bringing new navigational aids that would encourage more vessels to come to that location because safety is important. You cannot be driving in the dark without something showing you where to turn left or right. We have also deployed more crafts, more marine vessels to Calabar and appointed a third party towage company to offer services. At both locations we are thinking of what to do about the dredging and for Warri port, we are thinking of how to resolve the issues with the capital and maintenance dredging because what Warri needs is first of all, the capital dredging to get it back to that 7.5m and do maintenance dredging to reduce siltation.

And for Calabar, there is a matter in court that has stopped us from carrying out the dredging. But the FMOT is discussing a likely out-of-court settlement. For  Rivers port, we are working with BUA and he has finally sent his final designs and I believe that within the month of June, he will be getting the final approval after we have checked the designs. But he has already mobilised materials there over three four months ago. All the materials needed are already available. So, if we can finish constructing that port, it means that we will have healthy berths that have not collapsed, because they have been collapsing for over 10 years since concession. He has not worked on them, but we are sure now that things are picking up and if we are able to do that in these locations, that means we will have better and improved marine services, deeper draught system.

Finally, we are working on what concessionary tariffs we can give that would trickle down to the importers and exporters. What we have done in Calabar has had a bit of an desired impact, but it is not as much as we wanted, because it is the shipping lines that enjoy that, but it has not trickled down to the typical importers and exporters. If an importer or an exporter knows that he gets 10 or 15 per cent less in terms of charges by using those ports, they are most likely to go there. In the past, What we have done is that we have given it to shipping lines, but they might not have trickle it down. So, we have not felt that impact, but we have seen an increase in businesses in those locations and from the figures we have, there is a surprising increase in business activity there. Onne has been doing very very well and the container business is growing very well.

So, how do you ensure that the tariff meant to woo shippers to the Eastern ports trickle down to the importers and exporters?
That is what we are working on now. The tariffs and billing department is working on something that can be more direct. For us, most of the charges are either to the Customs, or shipping lines. So, we are thinking of coming out with a tariff review that would trickle down to the end-users

Recently, the House of Representatives summoned your parastatal, saying millions of dollars were unremitted in 2019. Can you throw some light on that allegation?
This is something from the audit of the Auditor General of the Federation, and based on the concession agreement signed in 2006. Let me give you a typical example with APMT there is what they call volume change and APMT is supposed to pay NPA a certain amount of money based on their cargo volume. So at the beginning of the year, or at the beginning of the month, you issue them a bulk invoice and it is based on the volume that they determine how much they pay you. Let us assume that it is $40 million every month, based on a predictive quantum of cargoes of let us say 10000 for the sake of example, which is equivalent to $40 million, if they do $6000 instead of $10000, they are going to prorate and pay you. So that difference is what they call volume change.

Secondly, there are some locations where you have leased land to people, let us say 10 hectares of land, but what they have access to is 6 hectares of land, and if they are supposed to pay you $10000, they prorate it and give you $6000. So that is an invoice you have raised in advance but they pay you less and we call it an encumbered area and there are also some tariffs related to land leases that are in contention and the agreement says before NPA increases any lease fees, there should be an agreement with the person that is leasing and so on and so forth.
NPA has gone ahead to increase lease fees  without the consent of the other party. The amount they are talking about  is an accumulated sum and not just for 2019. So, that report was about accumulated sums and we have written and explained and some of these revenues are uncollectible in the sense that they are actually based on the legal lease agreement signed, you can’t  collect that money and then of course, in that report, you have some liabilities and there are some debts and I am sure we have practically collected everything, and we have written already with the explanation and breakdown and so on.

Some of this liability is by NNPC also and they have legacy debts running into billions and then there are other liabilities as I said from 2019 till date. We are calculating almost N30 Billion or thereabout and of course NNPC is capable of paying and what is remaining is reconciliation. We have asked that NNPC should do what the NLNG is doing, which is pay on account and on a quarterly basis we reconcile, then, whether we carry forward or you pay, it resolves most of these problems.

Has security improved for vessels coming into the country?
When you say secure, safe anchorage, are you saying that the other anchorage recognised by the NPA is not secure and safe? We felt it was wrong and the NPA had argued together with the Federal Ministry of Transport and the President magnanimously cancelled that, and as of  now, we have not had any incident of piracy or insecurity at the anchorage. Since Its cancellation we have been here, we have not had any incident. Don’t forget the Deeep blu sea project is also there to secure the anchorage.

There is more patrol by the Nigerian Navy and there is more and better communication in times of distress, and do not forget also that the Deep Blue Project also has helped in reducing some of these things. What we used to have before is people will go to be at the anchorage and all these little vessels will come and attack, organised pirates and all that will be there, but we have not had one single incident yet at that Anchorage. We have not had any and so on. We have been working with the Navy and we have been supporting ourselves and they are actually up to the tasks in terms of securing the Anchorage.

So that secured Anchorage area was just a waste basically or another way of adding cost to shipping companies?
Well, we believe it was just increasing the cost of doing business in Nigeria and that was why we felt it was wrong because they were still paying NPA charges and then staying at an Anchorage that was said to be safe. But we knew our own Anchorage was safe. What we have done was to work with the Navy on the directive of the President and the Navy paid more attention to the Anchorage to increase their patrols.

I can see here that you have dealt with some staff issues such as welfare and gratuity payments. Why were these payments not made before now?
As at the time it was approved, some staff felt that as of the day we drew the line in terms of increase as it was approved by the board, they are supposed to solve this. Let us assume that the board approved it on the 1st of June, let us say 2019, between January and May, it means that some staff were not entitled. So, there was this allegation that the committee report actually recommended from January, then the Board approved it in June. We called them and had an engagement with them and we said it will not hurt if we pay them that money. So, we put it in the budget and the next year, we paid them this year. That was what happened.

One of your achievements in the last 100 days is the perfection of IFRS compliance asset register. Can you tell us about this?
So over time, one of the reasons for qualification of NPA’s audited financial statement is the  lack of access register, a comprehensive asset register, which is really very important. The asset register is supposed to have a list of all the assets of the organization categorised into various types of assets, the year of purchase, the value and the assets also. So that way, on click of the button, we will be able to know how many chairs are there, what is the value of the chairs, how do you depreciate them, what is the total value of assets of the organisation. But it has not been available for so long and in fact, when we came to NPA, it was not there. But this year, we have been  finally able to do that and we just concluded it and it is a tremendous achievement for us.

So, what we have done is that we have it now and any additional asset will just be added to the register to update it and anything that has been depreciated fully will be taken out of the asset list and anything that is disposed will be taken out of the asset. This is one of the requirements of the international financial regulation and it is a standard that ought to be there. It took a lot of work and first of all valuing the asset, identifying them, tagging them, dividing them into different asset categories and registering them. So, it is quite an achievement and I am proud of the Financial Department that actually worked with me and every other one that did it. It is a huge success.

The last time we had a chat with you, you spoke about fully digitalising and automating your processes. Tell us how much of that you have been able to implement!
Let us say the software we have, the EBS is Oracle and we have not been able to get the licence for so long. But in the last few months, finally, we got the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to approve the re-licencing of our Oracle Financial, Oracle Hyperion, Oracle HR and all that. So, that means you do not need to go around looking for patches. It is like an iphone, there are regular updates. You could have a problem that you will not be able to resolve because you do not have the licence and it had expired so many years ago. But now, we have an upgraded software, let us say EBS, it means that our processes are faster, our payments are faster, our revenue is faster, reconciliation is better. That is the bedrock first of all.

We also have servers that have reached their end of the life, some of them since 2015. That has gone to FEC, we need to change those servers because we now have an updated and upgraded EBS. It means we have to change our servers. Apart from that, what we have now thought of is to fully automate one of the major functions of NPA which is the Harbour Department. The Harbour Department is not automated, but the Finance and HR Departments are fully automated. So, we have already started the process of automating our Harbour Department. Our Harbour Department, as the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) requires by 2025, we should be able to serially bring in vessels, board, unboard and berth them, sail them away. It should be an automated process.

We started working with the IMO in the past few months and IMO is consulting for the NPA to deploy what they call Port Community System. The first phase was done virtually and the consultants we’re meeting with NPA and we got all the stakeholders, viz. the Nigeria Customs, the shipping lines, the freight forwarders, the clearing agents, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), the Immigration Service, everybody that is involved in port activities to bring in people to work with us towards the deployment of a port community system. The IMO graciously agreed to fund the first phase, the second phase will start on the 30th of this month and the consultants are coming in from the UK. They are coming to do an on-the-spot assessment of what is available both by the NPA and the Nigerian Customs

The Port Community System is a system that allows everybody to plug in. So, when you are looking for information, you are sharing data, you are filling forms, whatever you are doing, it is more like a centralised thing and the Federal Ministry of Transport has also been pushing this and we got approval to go ahead with this. It is a major requirement for you to improve services and reduce time and interference and be more efficient.

They will be here for ten days and the IMO is paying for that, and then the last stage will be paid by the Nigerian government and then we now know where we are and when they come, it will be basically for on-the-spot assessment. We are excited because it will just reduce a lot of human interference, it will improve efficiency, and it will also improve revenue and reduce leakages because you will be able to know what vessels came in. Every vessel has an IMO number where you will check and see what they are even coming with. So the Nigerian Customs will be able to access every vessel and check what is coming in, who is coming in, and at what time.

However, what makes this system even very interesting is that it is not going to do away with the existing e-customs or whatever applications or whatever the other stakeholders are using. What they are saying is plug in what you have into this and we all share data and information to do things better and faster. That is really going to improve what we are doing and whatever we have on the ground that has been in silos. We are also integrating because we have had so many things that are in silos, we have the estate module, we have a department that is integrating all of the modules in such a way that we have one compartmentalised operational system, because some of them are in silos and we want all of them to have handshake.

We raised the issue of delays and importers are complaining about cargo clearing. You pledged then that it was something you were concerned about and would act on. Tell us how much has improved since  we had that conversation!
First, let me explain how these delays happen. The delays start from how quickly vessels are brought to the ports. If a vessel comes and it is at the Anchorage for three days waiting, that means we have wasted three days. The second thing is how good is the equipment, the loading and offloading equipment of the terminal operators. If any machine starts working and it breaks down, that means the time has been wasted, then how quickly do they do their own processes in terms of  Argo clearing processes. Then how quickly does the Customs also do examinations. So you see it is a chain.

That which is within our powers and responsibility, in terms of bringing in the vessels and of course we have been in the harbour department, we have improved their equipment, their communication. With these, we know that waiting time has reduced in terms of vessels staying at the Anchorage and at the Quay side, we have been monitoring. There is a department of monitoring and regulatory services that has been monitoring the efficiency of terminal operators, the quality of the equipment and so on.

We have had reasons to call terminal operators to say that the equipment is not good, that they need to repair or work on them or you need to increase the number of forklifts or what have you. There are quarterly reviews that we do, and there are boxes we tick, and these have improved that, the terminal operators, some of them have the equipment, but some of the equipment is old. We are watching them to bring in more equipment, better cranes because most of them are using RTG and because of the attention we have paid to Onne and other locations, most of them are bringing bigger cranes and so on and so forth. We are working with the Nigerian Customs and then the ease of doing business PEBEC and the Nigerian Customs seems to be doing a bit better. They have deployed a few scanners; we believe they can deploy more.

There is an improvement and we can do far better, but we have seen an improvement in terms of the speed of clearing. Then of course, one of  the complaints is even how quickly  the truck can leave the port environment. You can see there is an improvement in terms of the truck movement within the Apapa area because of the e-call up system that we introduced. Also, there have been less and less complaints, but we can still do better and we believe that. Tin Can is where we have a major problem because of the road construction, the system has not been very efficient there because the roads are just terrible, but we are working on that and we have seen that improvement.

The sinking fund for the takeoff of the Lekki Deep Sea port is another achievement that we can point to, can you speak on that?
At the start of the agreement, construction and funding, one of the responsibilities of the NPA was to fund a certain sinking fund,  which  be held by government and it is more like a guarantee in case of defaults and it has not been funded actually. We are supposed to have started funding it in 2019, but that has not been done. But I am sure now that we have funded it.

The first amount was paid in sometime this month and it is supposed to be a quarterly payment of $1.5 million or so and that sinking fund, nobody touches the money, it belongs to the government actually, but it’s just a guarantee,  and once that is done and construction is concluded and then, you know they have started repaying the debt, I am sure all of that will be over. But it is a responsibility and it is more like one of the terms of the agreement that the government will provide a sinking fund and  the sinking fund account is in the Central Bank and it is managed by the DMO, NPA and of course the Federal Ministry of Finance.

Most often we hear that ships come into Nigeria with goods and leave empty. It is something that is not good for our country and being in this position, you can see what comes in and what goes out. Give us an idea what the Nigerian export landscape looks like to the international market.

 In terms of cargoes and in terms of quantity in tonnage, it is really very small compared to what we are importing and there is no hiding because we all know that Nigeria is an import-dependent nation. But we have also started seeing an increase in terms of percentage increase in export volume, especially in agricultural products. So there has been this effort by government, which has worked towards  diversifying to non-oil exports. You can see a lot of programmes by the Central Bank of Nigeria, a lot of programmes by the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), a lot of initiatives by the various government agencies.

Our responsibility is to provide an enabling environment to ensure quick processing of export boxes, but the first thing is starting from access to reports. We are building all the attention that is needed so that these boxes can go into the ports and we have created a single line going into Apapa and Tin Can for export boxes, but we also encourage people to go to other port locations and a lot of terminal operators are coming in to do that. We also gave licences to 10 export processing terminals and the essence here is for exporters to a location that is a one-stop location where you can take your exports, where you can sort them, bag them, tag them and put them into  the container and that container goes straight into the pot into the vessel and that way, you know, it is a one-stop shop and that is what we have created. Also, because one of the major problems is that you have an export commodity that perishes before it leaves the port, not necessarily because of the inefficiency of the ports themselves, but sometimes also even the exporters. They come to the port without the necessary documentation. There is this NXP form by the CBN that we have found very cumbersome and I know the apex bank was amending and by that way, it makes it friendlier to use. You have to get the approval because the Central Bank has to approve, the shipping company will not take your export out of the country unless that NXP form has been approved showing what you are exporting, the tonnage, the weight, the value, the location and the number of containers.

So, it is a joint effort by various government agencies actually, but for me coming from the financial sector, because that will improve our GDP, we will keep doing whatever we are doing and for me it is just simple knowledge that exports should be given all the priority they need and we have paid a lot of attention to it.
There was this policy then by shipping companies that for them to take an export box, you can only bring an export box if you are taking away an import box and most times, the person importing does not even know who is importing. So, we told them that it was not acceptable,  we stopped it. We were ready to  review any shipping line’s workload in the Environment Shipment Council where I need to penalize any shipping line working with the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) flouting those directives. We have found shipping lines frustrating exports, they are in favour of taking empty containers because of the disruption of the supply chain worldwide. So, there is scarcity of empty containers in some other countries. Therefore, it was more profitable for them to carry empty containers. Nonetheless, we keep working with the relevant government agencies.

In 100 days you seem to have achieved a lot. If all these came in 100 days, can you project for us what you intend to accomplish in another 100 days?
In another 100 days, what it simply means is that we would do more. We will do more and more. First of all, you look for the low-hanging fruits that would make an impact, not for political or any other reasons, because you believe that by the time you thick those lower boxes, it makes it possible for you to take the more difficult ones, and some of the things are procedural actually. The process is quite cumbersome and difficult to do. So, what you do is reach out to the stakeholders who give the approval, you reach out to them and let them understand this not about Mohammed, it is  not about NPA, but about Nigeria. Actually, let them see the essence of doing these things.

It helps the country, it helps NPA and then you can now personalise it to Muhammed. But I try not to personalise it because it is not about me. So, if it is staff welfare it is not about me but about the staff, some of them will have 20 to 30 years to go, but for me I can leave today or can be asked to go any other day. And if it is about port infrastructure, it is not about my need, but about Nigeria to seek ways about bringing in the cargoes that we have been losing to other countries and if it about revenue, it is not going into my pocket, but government’s pocket, but we need to collect it and we need to pay. We are achieving what we are achieving because the staff are really working with us. You know a happy staff is like a happy wife. So, I believe that in the next 100 days, we will have more and more to say.

Does your background in finance really impact on your ability to collect these revenues that have been lying there in the hands of debtors that do not want to pay? I just want to ask if that is playing a role in the increase in revenue we are seeing.

Working in the bank has probably toughened me up, and once you are owing, you are owing. You just need to pay, and for us, we have already been trained to see red flags. I am taking the final decisions now and even while in finance with the former Managing Director, we say that this person has to pay, but what I mean is that each time I pick the books, I look at it and I call the port manager and ask that person I just saw his letter is negotiating to pay what he is owing us for the next six months and I ask if he would be able to pay what he is owing today, tomorrow again? Will he be able to pay his bills this month together with what he is owing us?
So, already it is a red flag for me and I am also used to just going and collecting debts and saying debtors must pay and they always find a way to pay that money.

I have no qualms shutting down any business that is not paying us o=what is due NPA. The only one I have not been able to do is the NNPC, but I have no plans to shut down any business. We will sit down with NNPC and discuss with them on how to resolve this because they need to pay. We have responsibilities and we also have targets to contribute to CRF. We also have responsibilities in terms of providing service, quality service, working vessels, I mean marine vessels, we must pay our staff and rehabilitate the physical infrastructure at the ports. So, that might help also. You just see the red flags and immediately you call the port manager to watch out for those debtors and need to tell him to continue pursuing them and I think it has helped. When you call a port manager, he can hear it in your voice that you are not joking about it and he needs to go get that money.

So, the same way in the bank you hold MPR, it is the same way we hold meetings now and on a monthly basis when you tell all the port managers to tell us how much revenue we are expecting to generate by asking them who is owing and then we come back for the next meeting where we review the minutes of the last meeting. We have also told the port managers that their appraisal is how efficiently they run the ports, collect revenues and collect our debts. But I have no plans of  changing port managers every month. So, we have people up and doing and we are holding them more responsible.