Free Zone Reforms: NEPZA boss calls for restraint

The Managing Director of the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA), Prof Adesoji Adesugba, has intervened to calm mounting agitation of the Authority’s workforce over alleged surreptitious attempt to undermine its legal status by a report of a Technical Working Group constituted by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment.

Adesugba, also Chief Executive Officer of the Authority, called for calm at a weekly parley with the staff of the headquarters on Wednesday in Abuja.

Responding to the workers’ fears and agitations on the committee’s draft report, titled, ‘Draft Report Performance Evaluation of Free Trade Zone (FTZ) Licensees’, the NEPZA boss explained that “it is important for us to realise that NEPZA is a creation of Act 63 of 1992 of the National Assembly.”

According to him, the reformation of NEPZA is definitely not within the competence of NEPZA’s management, explaining that “the Authority was aware that there had been discussions on the remodeling of government agencies for efficiency from the time of Steve Oronsaye’s Panel recommendations.”

“These discussions, as far as we are aware, are still ongoing and no decisions have been made nor the enabling laws to effects such changes enacted,” he said.

Adesugba further said: “With respect to the said report of the committee from the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, such report has not been officially communicated to NEPZA and at the right moment, the position of NEPZA will be conveyed by its board to the appropriate authorities.”

The NEPZA’s CEO, however, urged the workers and the local branch of the labour union, Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), to exercise restraint so as not to send the wrong signals to both operators of zones and enterprises operating in the zones.

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