Efficient and competitive ports are critical to Nigeria achieving its ambition of a $1 trillion economy by 2030, the Director-General, Nigerian Ports Economic Regulatory Agency (NPERA), Dr Pius Akutah, has said.

To that end, he said the agency would combine stronger enforcement, standard-setting, automation and digitisation to eliminate inefficiencies, reduce the cost of doing business and make Nigerian ports more competitive.

Akutah, who spoke in Lagos when the President of the Shipping Correspondents Association of Nigeria (SCAN), Mr Moses Ebosele, led a delegation of the association on a courtesy visit to the agency, said NPERA was established to regulate port economic activities, enforce compliance and check practices capable of undermining trade and port efficiency.

Stating that NPERA now has stronger legal provisions to sanction infractions, Akutah noted that in the past, there was no such potency in the agency’s law; therefore, “it could not enforce anything because the penalties were too insignificant to deter any infraction.”

However, the new framework provides for a minimum penalty of N500,000 for an individual first offender, which can increase where infractions are repeated, he said, adding that the highest penalty for a corporation is now N20 million, which could also multiply if a company continues to violate the law.

The NPERA DG clarified that the objective of the law was not to disrupt port operations but to establish a regulatory regime that would encourage stakeholders to comply with established standards, adding, “with the fear of the consequences, they will play by the rules naturally.”

Meanwhile, he said NPERA would also focus on setting standards and promoting innovation in the sector, making those standards very easy for people to maintain.

Regarding concerns about multiple regulatory agencies conducting physical checks at ports and their impact on trade facilitation, Akutah said NPERA was not seeking to prevent other government agencies from performing their statutory responsibilities.

Nevertheless, he insisted that such activities must be carried out responsibly without unnecessarily delaying cargo clearance, adding that greater automation and reduced human interference in port processes would help eliminate bottlenecks and make operations more seamless.