This call, Halilu said, is essential in order to achieve the overall mandate and goals of the agency.

In his welcome address at the opening of ceremony of the 2024 three-day in-house training for procurement officers and other participating staff from NASENI system-wide, which commenced on Tuesday in Abuja, he stated that the Agency wanted to be the best in everything it does in order to deliver quality services to achieve the overall goals of Mr. President’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

The EVC/CEO while highlighting the importance of the training, said it was designed to equip officers involved in procurement with the professional capacity needed to manage NASENI’s procurement processes effectively and in full compliance with the Public Procurement Act 2007.

While assuring that NASENI was committed to complying with everything outlined in the Act, he said “the importance of the workshop cannot be overstated, particularly for newly hired or deployed officers. It is essential that incumbent officers are trained and retrained to align with NASENI’s vision and mandate.”

He admonished participants to put into practice what they would learn in their daily work to make a difference in how they carry out their roles and responsibilities, he urged them to take the training serious and gain from the extensive knowledge and experience of the resource persons, leading to improved service delivery.

Also, in his keynote address Mr. Olusegun Omotola, acting director-general, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), represented by the Director of Training, Dr. Adebowale Adedokun, said NASENI has a crucial role in national infrastructure development thus building skills and competencies are critical for the execution of transparent and efficient public procurement which guarantees good value for money.

He noted that every government agency must comply with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Circulars on procurement plans and procurement records and that no procurement process could commence without properly approved procurement plan via the use of the NOCOPO system and must have a full-fledged procurement department/unit/division manned by BPP trained/certified officers.

In addition, he urged NASENI to be very thorough and careful in the discharge of its responsibilities in the public procurement process with the highest sense of accountability, ethics and integrity, saying it is expected that at the end of the training, all factors militating against effective performance of procurement related activities and budget implementation would have been addressed.

This assurance was given during the committee’s oversight visit to the terminal of Ports & Cargo Handling Services Limited, a subsidiary of SIFAX Group, at the Tin Can Island Port, Lagos.

According to Engineer Hamisu Ibrahim Chidari, the committee’s chairman, the House of Representatives has given the committee a mandate to ensure that all the federal government’s concessioned assets are performing at an optimal level.

He said: “This oversight visit is a key part of our committee’s statutory responsibility. We work with diverse government agencies and ministries to ensure that the assets of the government that have been concessioned are performing and delivering premium returns to the government as well as the investors. Our job also involves working to remove any obstacle that might be impeding the smooth running of the private investors in these assets.”

On the concession renewal, Chidari noted that the committee would be leveraging its excellent working relationship with the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Mr. Gboyega Oyetola, to resolve the contract renewal in the shortest possible time.

“We understand what this contract renewal means to your business and I assure you that the government will not allow this to linger for too long. This current administration is desirous of providing the needed enabling environment for businesses to thrive to grow the country’s economy. We will work with the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy to address any issue on the concession renewal,” he said.

Earlier, while welcoming the delegation to the terminal, John Jenkins, managing director, Ports & Cargo Handling Services Limited, appreciated the committee members for their visit, adding that the terminal operator and its parent company, SIFAX Group, have over the years contributed substantially to the growth of the economy through excellent service at the terminal and other allied businesses, employment opportunities for thousands of Nigerians as well as countless corporate social support projects that have touched the lives of thousands of less privileged Nigerians across the country.

He said the renewal of the terminal’s concession agreement would allow the company to implement its development plan that would make the terminal one of the best port terminals globally.

The committee members were accompanied on the visit by officials of the Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) and the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE).

This was revealed in a statement by Ajuri Ngelale, the special adviser to the President on Media & Publicity.

According Ajuri, their removal from office takes immediate effect.

He also stressed that the dismissed Chief Executives of FCCPC and BPE are directed to hand over to the next most senior officer in their respective agencies, pending the appointment of new Chief Executive Officers.

While giving insight into the rationale behind their removal, he noted that it was connected with the President’s Tinubu’s vision of restructuring and repositioning critical agencies in the country.

He said, it was in “conformity with plans to restructure and reposition critical agencies of the Federal Government towards protecting the rights of Nigerian consumers and providing a strong basis for enhanced contributions to the nation’s economy by key growth-enabling institutions.

On November 18, 2018, the BPE reached a settlement with 982 former SAHCOL employees on the payment of N1.8 billion in severance benefits after the company’s new owners fired them. The company is currently named as Skyway Aviation Handling Company (SAHCO Plc).

The BPE had claimed failures in the required contribution to the Treasury Single Account (TSA) as the reason for the delay, but the former personnel had not received any money since that time.

The mandatory contribution to the TSA has been increased from a 25% revenue contribution in 2015 to 40% this month.

In a memo to the aggrieved staff dated October 11, 2022, BPE explained that letters have been written to the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, but no positive response has been received from the ministry.

The memo read: “In the light of the foregoing, it has become expedient to update you on our modest efforts to bridge the communication gap from the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) we signed with you on November 2, 2018, to the setting up of the Negotiating Committee and our Director-General‘s willingness to offer to pay the redundancy as opposed to the stand of the Chairman of SAHCOL. It is evident that if we had the resources, this would have been a forgone issue.

“Also recall that at the inception of this administration in 2015, all funds of government agencies and MDAs were swept into the Treasury Single Account (TSA), thus disabling us financially.

Given this scenario, our only option was to write to the Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning for funds to settle you, which we did via our memo on May 19, 2022.

“We have employed several persons to assist, our last being a visit to one of the Directors at the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation on Friday, July 7, 2022. We are not relenting and any support from your end would be highly appreciated.”