The Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mohammed Bello-Koko, has been awarded the 2022 Maritime Icon of the Year by Champion Newspapers.
This is in recognition of his fast track of the approval process leading to the operationalisation of the nation’s first deep seaport, unprecedented revenue generation and remittances to consolidated revenue fund as well as port infrastructure renewal.
Other criteria are his milestone steps towards the deployment of the Port Community System (PCS) to lay the groundwork for the National Single Window necessary to tackle the challenge of the duplicity of functions and attendant delays in the ports, facilitation of the renewed export orientation of the Federal Government and efforts towards increased utilisation of ports in the eastern region.
According to the publishers and editorial board of Daily Champion Newspapers, Bello-Koko bagged the award for injecting fresh impetus into the authority and trajectory as an agency that contributed immensely to the economic and social development of the country through increased revenue generation.
They described him as a pragmatic leader that has distinguished himself as a business administrator, innovative manager and technocrat that has shown a high degree of integrity and transparency in both private and public affairs.
Group Managing Director, Champion Newspapers, Dr. Nwadiuto Iheakanwa, said the NPA helmsman’s ingenuity, creative, pragmatic and resilient approach to leadership, has brought a lot of transformation and made the nation’s seaports surmount some of the known challenges that have made them largely inefficient over the years.
He said this includes infrastructure deficits, policy and regulatory inconsistencies, overlapping functions and duplication of roles among ministries, departments and agencies operating at the ports as well as high incidence of infractions.
