The House of Representatives on Monday, July 22, said that the habit of consistently ignoring invitations from the parliament by ministers, heads of government agencies, and other government appointees was very embarrassing.
This is as the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) disagree over the provision of a 10% freight levies.
Speaker of the House, Abbas Tajudeen, who spoke at an investigative hearing organised by the House of Representatives Joint Committees on Commerce, Maritime Safety Education and Administration and Legislative Compliance said the attitude of some members of the Executive to the legislative invitation was of utmost concern.
Represented by the House leader, Hon. Julius Ihonvbere, the Speaker said the parliament may be forced to activate measures to ensure compliance, adding that the flagrant disregard for invitations by some MDAs was disgraceful, disrespectful, and an abuse of power.
He regretted the absence of the invited officials who are the chief executive officers of these ministries and agencies adding that it does not speak well of them and assured that the House leadership will activate measures to ensure compliance with its invitations.
The chairman of the joint committees, Hon. Ahmed Munir said Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has been rendered handicapped and had been unable to perform its statutory duties owing to none remittances of levies spanning decades, attributing this partly to the failure of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) to pay the ten percent freight levies to (NEPC).
Munir called for greater collaboration of the ministries and agencies of the federal government in the discharge of their respective mandates, adding that the essence of the public hearing is to find a solution to the issue of non-payment of 10 percent freight levies to the Nigeria Export Promotion Council NEPC by the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency NIMASA.
In her presentation, Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Nonye Ayeni said since 1992, NIMASA had blatantly refused to pay the 10% freight levies due to NEPC.
She said: “From 1992 NIMASA failed to pay any levies. No efforts to get them to pay the 10% freight levies yielded any fruitful results. Former president Muhammadu Buhari ordered them to pay. They never responded. The Attorney General of the Federation also drew the attention of NIMASA to the payment, no compliance.
“We wrote to the Ministry of Finance, that we still haven’t received any payment from NIMASA. The Nigerian Export Promotion Council has not been able to perform its statutory responsibilities because it is financially handicapped. So far, only 273 exports have been carried out. NEPC could have done more”.
But Executive Director of Finance and Administration of NIMASA, Chidi Ofodile, said NIMASA said the act establishing the agency did not provide for the payment of any 10 percent to NEPC.
He said as an agency created by an established act of government, NIMASA was consistently obeying government laws saying, “NIMASA, during its creation, did not inherit any liability from the Nigerian Maritime Authority (NMA) to be paid to NEPC. NIMASA Act is very clear. It does not indicate that any payment should be made to NEPC. Doing so is going against the law.”
Ofodile said both NIMASA and NEPC were created by acts of parliament and called on the lawmakers to look at the provisions of the law regarding the agencies.
The Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Maritime Safety Education and Administration, Honourable Uduak Odudoh, proposed that there was a need for both NIMASA and NEPC to present their acts before the lawmakers to be critically examined since there were perceived inconsistencies expressed by NIMASA.
While other lawmakers advocated that both agencies should seek redress in court for proper interpretation of the acts of NIMASA and NEPC, the leading Chairman of the joint committees, Honourable Ahmed Munir, has asked both NIMASA and NEPC to return to the negotiation table to resolve the crisis.
