CBN, MDAs abandon currency materials, hospital equipment at ports

Some key government ministries, departments and agencies have abandoned their consignments at the nation’s ports for over 12 months now.

Among the affected government agencies, according to investigation by our correspondents, are the Ministry of Health, which has 34 abandoned cargoes at the ports; and the Central Bank of Nigeria with 20 cargoes.

Others are the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, which has two, and the Delta Steel Company with 22 consignments.

While the CBN consignment contains currency materials; that of the Health ministry has equipment meant for hospitals across the federation.

The abandonment of the consignments, according to findings, is in flagrant disobedience to repeated warnings issued by the Nigerian Custom Service to the affected government agencies to clear their cargoes.

Their refusal to clear the cargoes had, for instance, made the Comptroller-General of Customs, Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko, to call on the Federal Government to take punitive measures against the agencies.

Dikko had expressed regrets that several appeals made by the NCS to the defaulting agencies had not been honoured, saying the development had increased congestion at the ports.

But findings by our correspondents in Abuja indicated that bureaucracy at the nation’s ports as well as the change in government policy as it related to standardisation of equipment were major reasons for the abandonment.

The development has led to the accumulation of huge demurrage and delay in the execution of key government programmes by the affected MDAs.

The Director, Corporate Communications Department, CBN, Mr. Mohammed Abdulahi, confirmed that the apex bank had cargoes containing spiral reinforcement materials for its projects.

Apart from this, he noted that some of the cargoes contained currency processing equipment, adding that officials of the apex bank had begun moves to clear the consignments.

Source