The ongoing investigation of Hadiza Bala Usman’s actions at the NPA should help answer Questions about government audits

FOR some reason, the Nigeria Ports Authority has had a quiet reputation of nepotism. The appointment of positions and contracts is often a more political affair even though this government agency is an anchor of a major sector of the country’s economy. Just like NNPC, the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority is appointed by the president. This is why, even though the NPA chief has a specific tenure in office, they can be removed and replaced abruptly. 

The current Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Hadiza Bala Usman, was suspended last week and the situation is becoming a contest of multiple truths. Officially, the federal government has stated that there is a need for Hadiza Bala Usman to “step aside” as an independent audit of the accounts and remittance of the Nigerian Ports Authority is conducted.

NPA Headquarters

In the middle of this saga is the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi. The minister set the suspension and probe of the former NPA boss in motion through a letter he sent to President Muhammadu Buhari on the 4TH , 2021 reporting that the yearly remittance of operating surpluses by the Nigerian Ports Authority was “far short of the amount due for actual remittance” between 2016 and 2020. 
According to Rotimi Amaechi, the NPA recorded an outstanding unremitted balance of around 165 billion naira (N165, 320, 962, 697) in those four years. He then suggested that the financial account of the Nigerian Ports Authority be investigated. 

The former Managing Director of the NPA, in her defense, said that the basis on which the operating surplus of the NPA was determined, which the budget office used to calculate the amount due as remittances to the federation account, was flawed and not in tune with the provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act. So, the figures provided by the budget office as the operating surplus for the years 2017 and 2018 were higher than the actual figures in the NPA’s audited financial statements. While the Audited Financial Statements of the Authority for 2017 and 2018 shows operating surpluses of N76.782 billion and N71.480 billion respectively, the budget office arrived at N133.084 billion and N88.79 billion respectively.

Ms Hadiza Bala Usman insists that the NPA did everything right in line with the template of the Fiscal Responsibility Commission; the accessible operating surplus stood at N51.09 billion and N42.51 billion for 2017 and 2018, due remittances to the government which is 80 per cent of these amounts were N40.873 billion and N34.065 billion respectively, and the NPA paid in N42.415 billion and N33.969 billion for the two years. The NPA also paid N31.683 billion and N51.049 billion for 2019 and 2020 even as it awaits the assent of the board of the agency’s audited accounts to confirm the amount to remit to the government for both years.

As the probe begins, a couple of interesting facts have been sure to unveil themselves. After the Ministry of Transport wrote to the office of the Auditor-General of the Federation on the 6TH of April to inform it of the president’s approval that the NPA be audited, both offices had different ideas. On the one hand, the Ministry of Transport listed five audit firms (including KPMG Nigeria, Deloitte Nigeria, Price Water House Coopers, Ernest and Young Nigeria, and McKinsey and Company) and requested the Auditor-General’s office to approve any of them for the NPA audit or grant it authority to advertise and select qualified audit firms to do the job. On the other hand, the Auditor-General, Adolphus Aghughu, informed the Ministry of Transport that the NPA board had already employed Messrs Muhtari Dangana & Co and SIAO Chartered Accountants as external audit firms. The Auditor-General went on to add that these firms had already been in charge of auditing NPA in previous years and the office of the Auditor-General is steadfast in conducting periodic checks on Audits. So these “reputable professional audit firms” are working just fine and there is “no justification for the Ministry to advertise and select qualified Audit firms to conduct the exercise.”

In this dirty back and forth, it is clear that personal interests are involved in this case.
The suspension of Hadiza Bala Usman was rather hastily taken and Mohammed Koko who is to head the NPA in her stead, according to sources, was the former account manager of Rotimi Amaechi when he was at Zenith Bank Plc. This then raises questions beyond personal relationships and invites us to consider how the Nigerian government audits its many agencies with handpicked firms.