Mr Bola Oyebamiji, Managing Director (MD), National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) on Friday warned staff against indolence and any act of sabotage to the revenue drive of the authority.
The MD gave the warning during the authority’s 2025 2-Day Management Retreat holding at the Headquarters Conference Hall in Lokoja.
Oyedeji explained that the warning became necessary in view of the fact that many of the Area Offices didn’t perform optimally revenue-wise in 2024.
He said that the management chose to continue to offer the big carrot rather than the stick, “basically to offer equal opportunity to every senior officer to prove him/herself.”
“Unfortunately, the results from this experiment were not encouraging. Consequently, the Management is left with no choice, going forward, but to wield the big stick to command performance.
“For instance, it is unfortunate that many of the Area Offices didn’t perform optimally revenue-wise. In a recent Audit Report, many Area Offices were indicted for failure to act professionally on matters affecting their jurisdictions.
“Again, a situation where some Area Offices will record as low as One Million Naira and Two Million Naira as revenue for a whole year is simply unacceptable,” he said.
The NIWA boss said that the Authority is expected to remit a substantial part of its receipt from the Port Development Levy in addition to the 50 per cent of its revenue deducted at source.
He decried: “many of our Area Managers failed to cooperate with the debt recovery consultant appointed sometime in 2024 to help recover all outstanding monies owed to the agency.”
“Regrettably, in many cases, the supposed debtors were simply untraceable and where available, figures were grossly inconsistent.
“This shameful negative attitude is simply unacceptable and will no longer be tolerated.”
According to him, the 2025 retreat is meant to provide an avenue to us for a broader review of our performance in 2024.
He disclosed that in 2025, new performance parameters have been added to authority’s performance indicators in line with the charge of President Bola Tinubu, to the Honourable Minister, His Excellency Gboyega Oyetola.
In their good will messages, Mr Suleiman Danjuma, Chairman, Senior Staff Union, NIWA and Zakari Idris, Chairman, Maritime Workers Union.Zakari Idris, pledged to up their games in the area of performance and revenue drive.
The duo acknowledged the concerns of the MD and the entire NIWA management team towards the welfare of the staff and their contributions to economic development of Nigeria.
