The Senate Committee on Public Accounts has summoned the management of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) to explain why terminal operators refused to pay shipping and service boat dues totalling $1.85 billion and N1.87 billion, to the federal government.

Chairman of the committee, Ahmed Wadada, issued the summon on Tuesday.

Mr Wadada (SDP, Nasarawa) said the non-payment of shipping and service boat dues was raised in the annual report of the Auditor General of the Federation. He did not state the year the report was produced.

He said the NPA management had evaded several invitations from the committee to appear before it.

Mr Wadada said the management was supposed to appear before the committee on Tuesday (today) for questioning but failed to do so.

“The NPA is found wanting on the Auditor-General for the Federation’s annual report and the end-of-status inquiry. There are issues surrounding Lagos channel management, Bonny channel management, and Calabar channel management. The committee has respectfully communicated with the NPA management, some responses have been received, while others remain unanswered.

“The NPA is supposed to have appeared before this committee today so that we can look at the queries raised by the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation. The NPA is not here. Some of these queries have got to do with the indebtedness of the terminal operators which is almost $1.85 billion, N1.87 billion”, the chairman said.

“The status of long outstanding debts are all parts of the issues to be answered by the NPA. This is not even to talk about the issues surrounding the Lagos channel management, Bonny channel management and Calabar channel management”.

Mr Wadada, therefore, directed management to appear before the committee within 48 hours or face legal action.

“On behalf of the committee, we will communicate to the management of the NPA within the next 48 hours either appear before the committee for Nigerians to know about the queries and issues that we have gathered, otherwise we will use all the necessary instruments available to us by law to bring the management of NPA to order because nobody is above the law,” he said.