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Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, has said that his ministry recorded a 92 per cent increase in revenue generation in less than one year in office.
Oyetola who revealed this during his ministerial sectoral first-year report on the Marine and Blue Economy in Abuja on Tuesday, maintained that before his assumption into office, the ministry generated N123.3b in quarter 1, 2023, but it increased to N243.8b in quarter 1 of 2024.
The former Osun state governor said that despite being just nine months old, the ministry has made significant strides in developing a national policy framework to create an enabling environment for the sector.
“Key policy thrusts and goals have been defined, and a comprehensive four-year Key Results Framework and Implementation Plan to guide the Ministry and its Agencies has been developed. A robust process for the finalisation and validation of the policy is ongoing. The National Policy on Marine and Blue Economy will be concluded by the Grace of God in December 2024.
“To realise the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr. President under the sector, we have been able to achieve a ramp-up of revenue to the government in the last year and we are poised to do more. A comparison of Quarter 1 of 2023 against Quarter 1 of 2024 revenue performance across the Agencies reveals a 92% increase,” Oyetola said.
The minister maintained that the achievements recorded so far were possible due to certain steps he took while assuming office.
He said, “We held a stakeholders’ engagement to examine the challenge of extortion and illegal checkpoints on the port access roads. We did that because we are determined to ensure that players in the industry do not lose money due to congestion and traffic gridlock. I am happy to report that, today, sanity has returned to the Tin-Can Island Port corridor as the perennial traffic gridlock on Mile 2 and Tin-Can in Lagos has since given way, thus putting an end to the multi-billion-naira yearly loss to Lagos ports traffic gridlock, which defied all known solutions for close to a decade.
“The increase in revenue performance has also been due to a 10% increase in the number of vessels calling at our ports due to strategic investments in port infrastructure in the last one year, mooring boats, patrol vessels and dredging of the port’s channels. We have also tightened revenue assurance by deploying technology,” Oyetola said.
He continued, “We completed some of the projects we inherited, including the Funtua Dry Port, Port Access Roads in Onne and the rehabilitation of some access roads in Tin Can and Apapa ports. At this juncture, I must commend my colleague and brother in the Federal Ministry of Works, His Excellency, Senator Dave Umahi, for promptly responding to our distress call, when I wrote and personally visited him in the office on the need to assist in fixing 15 roads in our ports across the country to help increase ports efficiency and aid the country’s economic growth. I wrote and visited him in December 2023. By February this year, some of the roads had been fixed, while work is still ongoing on some others.
“Owing to our determination to improve cargo dwell time at our ports, we were at Onne Port two months ago, to commission a 4.8km road and Mooring Boats. Mooring Boats are used to safety berth vessels calling at various pilotage districts. The mooring boats are our way of further enhancing the security and safety of our maritime space. As a Ministry, providing the enabling atmosphere for investors to patronise the Eastern Ports of Onne, Rivers, Warri, and Calabar is top on our agenda,” the minister said.
In the fisheries and aquaculture sector, the minister said that the ministry has partnered with Delta Systematics Group to enhance fish production, aiming to position Nigeria as a global leader in fisheries which is expected to create thousands of jobs and significantly contribute to the country’s GDP.
“The strategic exploitation of Nigeria’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is anticipated to produce trawling and sea farming export-oriented revenues, would no doubt further secure Nigeria’s position as a formidable player in the global fisheries and aquaculture market,” Oyetola said.
