Suspended Managing Director of Nigerian Port Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala Usman has stated that all surplus funds generated by the agency wad remitted.
This was contained in a letter dated May 5, 2021 sent to Professor Ibrahim Gambari, the Chief of Staff to the President.
In the letter, Usman stated that the purported failure of the NPA to remit an outstanding balance of N165.32 billion from 2017 to 2018 was a misrepresentation of facts.
She expressed that contrary to the figures given by the budget office as outstanding operating surplus, the NPA had remitted all that was due to the CFR — as stipulated in the fiscal responsibility act of 2007.
Usman informed the presidency that the NPA had N76.782 as operating surplus for 2017 and N71.48 billion for 2018 in its financial statement prepared in line with the fiscal responsibility act.
“Accordingly, the figures so provided by the Budget Office of the Federation as the Operating Surplus for the respective years on which basis they arrived at the shortfall are derived from submission of budgetary provision not the actual amounts derived following the statutory audit of the Authorities financial statements,” she said.
“The Authority’s (NPA) computation of its remittances to the CFR are concluded arising from numbers from Audited Financial Statements using the template forwarded to the Authority from the Fiscal Responsibility Commission as herewith attached and not budgetary provision.
“The authority has remitted the full amount due to it to CFR for the periods of 2017 and 2018 arising from the Operating Surplus derived from the Audited Financial Statement for the period totalling N76.384 billion as evidenced in attached treasury receipts.
“The Authority has remitted a total of N82.687 billion for the period 2019 and 2020 pending the audit of the financial statement at which point the amount so computed arising from the value of the Operating Surplus in the audited financial statement will be remitted to the CFR.”
Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari approved her suspension following the recommendation of Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi on Friday.