TheCable

Haruna Baba Jauro, director-general of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), has denied allegations that he is using the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to witch-hunt his competitors in the agency.

Last week, TheCable saw a petition by aggrieved NIMASA staff who claimed Jauro was using EFCC to harass those he considered heirs to the headship of the agency, while he himself had not been investigated.

But speaking in an interview with TheCable, he said the anti-corruption agency had also investigated him. He added that only those who had questions to answer were invited by the agency.

He explained that top positions in the organisation are distributed to reflect federal character. He also spoke about the agency’s efforts towards checking oil theft.

Soon, you will be two months in office. What work have you done so far?

The biggest achievement we are trying to make is to bring back the confidence and morale of the staff. We want our staff to be motivated and we are doing all we can to see that the motivation programme we put in place is working, talking about their promotions, their placements, especially those who have been stagnated for quite some time. We are working on that with the ministry [of transport] and the office of the head of service.

In other areas, we have expanded our hands of collaboration with other agencies to see how we can streamline our efforts to pursue one common goal of making Nigeria better.

As regards projects that are on ground, we want to operate a transparent administration. We want everybody to know what is on ground. We have therefore invited our mother ministry to be around us so that we can verify all our projects. Work is going on. It is just for us to verify where they are, then we continue from there.

Since May 29, there have been sweeping changes in several government agencies. In NIMASA, we heard that there will be a review of all promotions and employments since 2010. Is that also part of the change that we are experiencing in the country?

It’s part of the change we are experiencing in the country. What is ‘change’ all about? We want a change in orientation, generally, of people, of what governance and development is all about. It’s not a one-sided thing. When we are talking about the promotion that we mentioned earlier, we are trying to bring out a holistic thing that people will see and know that everybody is involved; it is important to know that everybody is a stakeholder. We are taking everybody along in what we are doing. And that is the ‘change’ we want this country to have; that everybody everywhere is important. And when we move, we should all move together.

On staff restructuring, there are allegations that some staff are being victimised.

There is no victimisation. What we did was to look at people and where they can be better placed; their qualifications and experience. Go and find out, all the people we put [in places], if you are going to pick just two people in the whole agency to be in each of these positions, one of them must be one of such people. So, there is no victimisation at all. What we did was to undo the victimisation that has been done before. That is why I said we want to bring back the motivation of the staff because they had been victimised. When we did this, others thought that we were doing it because of them. That is not true.

We also looked at the geopolitical zones. In all the departments now, you will find out that there is a representation from all the zones. We have eight directors and each zone is represented. In fact, the south-south has two. So, who are we victimising? They say we are victimising people from the south-south because of the former DG. Far from it. There is nothing like that. You can move round among the staff to find out that those we have placed in particular places, who among them is not supposed to be where he is? Or who among them has at least two people in this agency that are more qualified than the person that is there now? I challenge you, you may not find any. Whoever is there is qualified to be there, and no one is more qualified than him or her to be where he or she is.

Jauro (2nd left) during a visit by officials of Stevedoring companies

So, what do you say to the allegation of EFCC witch-hunt in NIMASA?

There is no EFCC witch-hunt in NIMASA. It’s a normal government exercise. There have been petitions from NIMASA over time and when the petitions become many, naturally government will like to investigate.

Certainly, there are reports that the acting DG has not been invited. Why is he not invited by EFCC when he has been part of everything? Why is he still there? But what people don’t understand is that I was the very first to be interviewed by the EFCC. They came here and sat down as you are sitting and we talked for hours, asking all the questions they could ask and I gave them all the answers I could give them. They left. Subsequent days, they came and started inviting other people. The fact that they didn’t invite me to their office does not mean I have not been questioned. And if they still have reason to question me, they will still come, and I will be questioned. But, there is no witch-hunt. We are not witch-hunting anybody. In the course of their investigation, they invite people on the basis of the documents that they have.

In one of the petitions, it was alleged that in trying to retain your position and become the substantive DG, you tried to to blackmail those who could have been appointed by the president. There is the allegation that you have properties home and abroad. What is your reaction?

The issue of having property cannot be a blackmail because anyone can own a property if he has the capacity.

They said through corrupt means

I don’t want to believe that because owning a property doesn’t have to be through corrupt means. Here in NIMASA, everybody knows that the policy in place even when we came was that as executive director (of finance), my limit of approval is N1 million. I cannot approve anything beyond N1 million, and subject to a limit of N5 million in a month. I can only approve N1 million at a time and they cannot be more than N5 million in a month. So, what I will approve mainly will have to do with staff allowances, transfer allowances, may be assistance to staff. At a point in time, the memo came to me that, as ED finance, I could not approve N10, 000.

So, how can I be corrupt? What am I approving? People don’t know that. When the EFCC came, I told them all these things. And they have seen the records. The issue of somebody saying I had acquired property through corrupt means or that I am witch-hunting or blackmailing people, they are just stories.

What is the plan of your administration against oil theft?

The plan we have is to equip ourselves more to face the challenge because the real problem is the lack of adequate equipment – surveillance in the air, in the waters and in the surface. Good enough, we have a satellite system now that we can view almost every place. What we want now is air surveillance. When the crude oil is being loaded, we can survey and move round and see the entire environment, including the pipelines through the waters. We find a way that we can monitor the movements. We are making plans to see how we can get these equipment.