Maritime academy saved N1.8bn in one year, Says Effedua

By Adebiyi Sunday

The Rector of Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Duja Effedua has disclosed that about N1.8 billion was saved by blocking wastage and reckless disbursements within one year.

Effedua, in a chat with journalists further gave an insight into how the school was revived from state of near collapse in 2017 to an institution that now attracts international recognition.

The rector, who disclosed that he had five months more to complete his tenure in office, said he has surpassed what he set out to achieve through prudent management of scarce resources, prevention of fraudulent activities and blocking avenues where funds were hitherto frittered away.

Furthermore said money did not come to the academy outside of its conventional funding source, as he has been able to spend more to improve the living conditions of cadets on campus and enhance the working environment for staff and contract workers.

Quote: “The academy has not received its 2021 grant from NIMASA and this is the fifth month of the year. Yet we are still surviving. The era of money sharing is over and would never happen again.

“Some of our indigenous staff are involved in the corrupt practices as they own companies through which they siphon money from the academy. All these companies were discovered and blacklisted”.

Effedua disclosed that infrastructure has evolved from the former state of multiple abandoned projects, poorly executed jobs and fraudulently approved non-existent jobs that were either recorded as completed or almost done on paper with funds released

He disclosed that the survival pool and nautical building projects were examples of contracts that lingered for over a decade before he came to complete them with befitting adjustments at reasonable costs on manpower development.

Effedua said his administration is prioritising training of academic staff in keeping with the vision of attaining and sustaining international recognition for the academy.

He explained that the school had a lopsided staff roll that is non compliant with federal character principle.

According to him, out of the 575 employees, 400 were from Akwa Ibom State, of which 380 were said to be from Oron.