By Babajide Okeowo
A showdown is looming in Nigerian ports as organized labour in the maritime sector has rejected a planned 50 per cent deduction from the Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, into the Federation Account.
The labour unions under the aegis of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria MWUN, and the Senior Staff Association of Statutory Corporations and Government Owned Companies, SSASCGOC, NPA branch warned that if this is done, it portends great danger for port operations and development amongst others.
Rather, the unions advocated for 30 percent IGR deduction.
To avert the showdown, the two in-house Unions at a briefing recently wrote to President Bola Tinubu to intervene to avoid a looming industrial unrest over the issue, failure to concede to this will lead to the withdrawal of their services from the nation’s seaports.
“Our attention has been drawn to the Federal Ministry of Finance’s (FMF) circular Ref FMFCME/OTHERS/IGR/CFR/21/2023 dated 28th December, 2023 addressed to all Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies/Parastatals on automatic deduction of 50% from internally generated revenue.
We have carefully studied this circular especially as it relates/affects the Nigerian Ports Authority and hastened to express our displeasure over the same on the following grounds.
Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) is a self-funded Government Agency which receives zero allocation from the Government budget and taking a chunk of 50% of its internally generated revenue will as a matter-of-fact stall or impede the effective discharge of its corporate responsibilities and the consequential effect of this will not be palatable.
Automatic deduction of 50% of its internally generated revenue shall definitely leave the Authority, financially incapacitated to discharge these responsibilities to the host community which may lead them to resort to unhealthy activities. We recommend that 30% of the revenue internally generated by the Authority could be automatically deducted whilst 70% is left for the Authority to accomplish its overhead costs and statutory responsibilities, failure of which the Union would have no other option than to withdraw the services of its members from all Ports formations nationwide” the statement signed by Com. Akinola O. Bodunde, President SSASCGOC and Prince Adewale Adeyanju, President General, MWUN reads.
