By  Ifeyinwa Obi
LAGOS—Maritime stakeholders have called on the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, to account for the money it made from the Cargo Tracking Note, CTN.

Their clamour followed the scrapping of the payment system by Federal Government. The abolishment of the controversial charge regime was announced by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in Lagos, last week as part of measures to free the ports from the grip of extortion, corruption and arbitrary charges that had stiffled ports operations and cargo clearancef.

CTN was strangely introduced in January 2010 into the port payment regime, despite public outcry against it.

The programme was championed by NPA, which rationalised its introduction on security of cargo.

NPA, as an implementing agency for the programme, had contracted a Belgian-based company, Transport and Port Management Service, TPMS, as its sole representative to collect the fee.

The document fee for loading ports in Europe and Africa attracts EUR 50 per CTN  and one CTN was issued for each Bill of Lading. For shipments from loading ports other than Europe and Africa, EUR 70 was charged.

It was estimated that 10 billion Euro (N2.1 trillion) accrued to the regime annually, which was shared between Federal Government as represented by NPA and the consultant on 60-40 basis.

Before the payment system was scrapped last week, NPA had operated the money-making machine for 21 months.

Going by the estimated gross earnings, NPA was said to have netted close to 20 billion Euro (N4.2 trillion).

The argument by some stakeholders was that NPA should account for the money, giving details of how much was paid to the consultant and how much accrued to the Federal Government.

Mr Eugene Nweke, the National President of National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders, NAGAFF, want the accrued proceeds from the scrapped programme  used for port development.

“NPA should be made to render full accounts of the money so far collected from the programme. Importers who paid this money are Nigerians and we have the right to know the amount so far collected,” another Lagos based importer said.

“The matter should not be treated like the port development fee, which had been part of the regime of payments at the port for ages but of which we do not know it true position neither has the NPA used it to develop the port for which it was meant,”  another industry operator added.