REMARKS BY MANAGING DIRECTOR OF THE NIGERIAN PORTS AUTHORITY, HADIZA BALA USMAN AT THE 2017 LONG SERVICE/MERIT AWARD ON SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2017
Courtesies,
I am grateful to God for the opportunity that we have here to gather and recognize the good work that we have all done in past years today.
In spite of the outlook of the economy at the beginning of this year, the management of the Authority set out certain goals and objectives for itself for 2017 and we are grateful that we have attained most of the goals that we set for ourselves.
Now, right from the outset, management was conscious of the fact that none of these would be attainable without the understanding and cooperation of the workforce. This is the main reason why we have maintained an open door policy which has made it possible for all of us rub minds and agree on the best way to achieve the very important task of repositioning port operations in Nigeria for better efficiency.
On behalf of management, I want to thank you, our colleagues for keeping faith with us. While we are not at that place where we hope to be, we certainly are not where we started from. So I take the opportunity that this rare event presents to commend you for your commitment to service and all the sacrifices that you have all had to make.
Someone said that the reward for hard work is more work, at the NPA, we know that this not the exact situation. There is of course always more work for us because we want to improve on our last performance, never resting on our oars, but can also assure you that welfare will continue to be of utmost priority to us.
In the coming year, we assure that we will do our best to improve the condition of service of staff and raise the morale of our people.
As we do this however, we would continue to lay a demand on you to set a standard of dedicated and committed service to maritime industry in particular and our nation in general.
It is our desire to entrench accountability and efficiency signaled by smooth operations at all our port locations and improvement in the turnaround time of cargoes in the coming year, it is our desire to improve on the Executive Orders that we started implementing last year and reduction in the delay time at the ports.
I want to on behalf of all of us who serve Nigeria at the NPA thank today’s 530 recipients of the long service awards, seven merit awardees and our 30 gallant fire service men and other crew members that put off the recent fire incident in Port Harcourt.
Even if this is a token, what we are doing today, should encourage all of us that Nigeria appreciates us and that we can indeed reap the reward of our loyalty to the country while in our lifetime.
I pray that we will also find the grace to remain committed and faithful to this country, so we can leave it a better place for generations after us.
Thank you for listening and God bless.