The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mohammed Koko, said the economic policies of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, which have attracted global applause, are responsible for the transformation of the maritime industry and improvement in revenue generation by the Authority.

Koko said this during an unscheduled visit to the Lagos ports access roads whose decade-long gridlock was recently cleared by the NPA.

He hailed the leadership of the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, as well as his approach to driving the industry.

As part of President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, he said, the sanity that has since returned to the port’s access roads would be sustained to promote ease of doing business and drive exports to enhance Nigeria’s balance of trade.

He added that despite global economic headwinds that characterised the year, the NPA succeeded in maintaining momentum to surpass its sterling performance last year.

“The implementation of continuous performance improvement measures resulted in unprecedented revenue generation and remittances to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) of the Federation, with revenues steadily growing from N361 billion in 2022 to N501 billion as of December 2023 and remittances increasing from N93.4 billion in 2022 to N131.2 billion by last year,” he said.

The NPA helmsman, who was recently included by the President on the Implementation Committee of the National Single Window Project, said that taxes paid to the government also grew tremendously in the period under review.

The foregoing, he said, added to strategic forecasts set to be actualised in 2024 such as the $1 billion worth reconstruction of Tincan Island Port Complex and the comprehensive rehabilitation of Apapa, Rivers, Onne, Warri and Calabar port complexes, new ports development such as Badagry, Snake Island, Burutu and Ondo deep seaports among others.