NPA To Scrap PIACSC

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has concluded plans to dissolve the Port Industry Anticorruption Standing Committee (PIACSC) soon, according to P.M.Maritime findings.

Authoritative sources at NPA informed that the NPA intends to dissolve the committee in order to restructure the anti-corruption campaign to become port-based and give it more bite.

Part of the reasons, according to the sources, is to align the anti-corruption crusade with current realities since the committee was set up before the port reforms in 2006.

It was learnt that the NPA Management has saddled the Chairman of the NPA’s newly-established Anti-corruption and Transparency Monitoring Unit (ACTU), Mr. Nasir Anas Mohammed, with the responsibility of winding down the operations of the PIACSC.

The PIACSC was constituted in 2001 by the NPA following the approval of the then Transport Minister, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, in collaboration with other stakeholders after a Stakeholders’ Summit organised by the NPA.

Members of the PIACSC are drawn from NPA, shipping companies, Freight Forwarding Group of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Transparency in Nigeria, Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Ports Authority Police Command (PAPC), Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), and Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), amongst others.

The committee has sub-committees in the ports outside Lagos, including Port-Harcourt, Onne, Warri, and Calabar, replicating most of the same stakeholders stated earlier.