Nigeria’s Acting President Yemi
Osinbajo, has ordered the resumption of 24-hour operations at the Apapa
port and outrightly banned touting by officials or unofficial persons at
any port; be it air, land and sea ports in Nigeria.
This is coming barely a day after
he signed three Executive Orders dealing with the business environment,
local content in public procurement and timely budget submission. The
Orders take effect immediately.
The acting president, in the Order,
issued on Friday, said that, “the Apapa Port shall resume 24-hour
operations within 30 days of the issuance of this Order and there shall
be no touting whatsoever by official or unofficial persons at any port
in Nigeria.’’
According to the directive on port
operations, “on duty staff shall be properly identified by uniform and
official cards while off duty staff shall stay away from the ports
except with the express approval of the agency head. The FAAN Aviation
Security (AVSEC) and Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) Security shall
enforce this order.’’
To address the menace of touting at the
ports, the Order expressly stipulates that “all non-official staff shall
be removed from the secured areas of airports. No official of FAAN,
Immigration, security agency or Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) or
any other agency is to meet any non-designated dignitary at any secure
areas of the airport.”
The acting president also directed that
the official approved list of dignitaries that have been pre-approved to
be received by protocol officers shall be made available to AVSEC and
other relevant agencies ahead of their arrival at the airport.
According to the Order, “any official caught soliciting or receiving bribes from passengers or other port users shall be subject to immediate removal from post and disciplinary as well as criminal proceedings in line with extant laws and regulations.’’
“All relevant MDAs at the airports shall within 30 days of the issuance of this Order merge their respective departure and arrival interfaces into a single customer interface, without prejudice to necessary backend procedures.’’
On the harmonisation of activities of
agencies operating at the ports, Mr. Osinbajo ordered that “all agencies
currently physically present in Nigerian Ports shall within 60 days
harmonise their operations into one single interface station domiciled
in one location in the port and implemented by a single joint task force
at all times, without prejudice to necessary backend procedures.’’
No comments:
Post a Comment