ReportsNG
N879.1 million is the total the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency recorded across six expenditures in 2024, and not one of the six accounts for what the money bought. The agency’s expense records for the year, reviewed by ReportsNG, carry N300,000,000 for TV and radio programmes, N106,600,000 for advert placement, N300,000,000 for annual replenishment of store items, N50,000,000 for the preparation and implementation of an MSSP document and a BI-Senior Management Strategy Session, N40,000,000 for MTSP entrepreneurial schemes and research, and N82,500,000 for ILO mandatory meetings and conferences. No station, no campaign, no item, no consultant, no research output and no delegate list is attached to any of the six sums.
None of the six is a salary bill, a vessel, a rescue asset or a marine pollution response. Each one is an overhead described in broad language, and the descriptions are all the records offer. No vendor name, contract number, invoice, delivery note or completion report stands behind any of the figures.
Dr Dayo Mobereola became Director-General in March 2024. A presidential statement dated 12 March 2024 confirmed his appointment for a renewable four-year term after the tenure of his predecessor, Bashir Jamoh, ended on 10 March 2024. Mobereola therefore led the agency for roughly nine months of the year the records cover. The expense records present the six as full-year totals and do not separate the spending inherited before his arrival from the spending his management approved, processed or paid. The N879.1 million accordingly sits on the agency he led for most of 2024, and the separation only his management can publish remains unpublished.
N300 million for television and radio, and no station named
The largest single sum is the N300,000,000 recorded for TV and radio programmes. Publicly advertised Nigerian rates measure what a sum of that size commands. Premium 30-second television spots on major pay-TV entertainment channels are offered at between N150,000 and N300,000. At N300,000 a spot, the sum equals 1,000 prime-time spots. At N150,000, it equals 2,000 spots.
Published national television rates widen the comparison. A publicly advertised NTA rate places three hours of live coverage at about N12 million, so the same N300 million equals 25 separate three-hour live broadcasts, 75 hours of national television. Another published NTA listing places a 30-second documentary slot at about N3.5 million, a rate at which the sum equals about 85 premium documentary placements.
Radio costs a fraction of television. An institutional radio rate card lists a 30-second jingle at about N2,956 including tax and a 30-minute live sponsored programme at about N10,213. At those published rates, N300 million equals more than 101,000 radio jingles or almost 29,400 half-hour live programmes.
The records identify no television series, no radio campaign, no episode count, no station schedule and no maritime safety result. A media provision large enough to buy airtime at that scale rests in the records on three words: TV and radio programmes.
A second media sum of N106.6 million for adverts
Alongside the television and radio provision, the records carry a separate N106,600,000 for advert placement. The two take the agency’s recorded media and advertising total for 2024 to N406,600,000. At the published premium benchmark of N300,000 for a 30-second television spot, the advert sum alone equals about 355 prime placements. At the N150,000 benchmark, it equals more than 710 placements. Print or digital placement at published rates would produce a wider volume still.
The records do not state whether the money bought television spots, newspaper pages, online banners, billboards or sponsored interviews. It states no number of adverts, no outlet and no public maritime message that required N106.6 million after N300 million had already been recorded for television and radio. The records hold two media totals and no campaign inventory against either of them.
N300 million for store items, with not one item named
The second N300,000,000 is recorded as the annual replenishment of store items. The description names no item. It carries no quantities, no unit prices and no supplier, and it does not state whether the money bought stationery, uniforms, safety equipment, office consumables or spare parts.
The arithmetic shows what the missing schedule conceals. At an illustrative average of N100,000 an item, N300 million represents 3,000 items. At N50,000 an item, it represents 6,000 items. At N10,000 an item, it represents 30,000 items. Quantities and unit prices are the only test of whether a stores provision of this size bought value, and the records publish neither.
Section 38 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 places on every agency the duty to apply public money only as appropriated and for value received. A stores provision with no item, no quantity and no unit price gives the public no means of confirming that the N300 million met that duty, and the account the Act requires is the account the agency has not rendered.
N50 million for a strategy document and one management session
The records carry N50,000,000 for the preparation and implementation of an MSSP document and a BI-Senior Management Strategy Session. The records do not define the MSSP acronym, and they state no venue, no duration, no attendance figure, no consultant and no cost breakdown for either the document or the session.
A published 2024 professional retreat package supplies the market measure. The package covered three days, with two nights of accommodation, feeding, return transport, local shuttles, a roundtable, visits and a closing event, at N205,000 per person in single rooms and N175,000 per person in shared rooms. At those rates, N50 million funds about 244 people on the single-room package or about 286 people on the shared-room package. A senior management strategy session draws on a small senior team, a fraction of either number. The records contain no attendance list and no finished strategy document against which the N50 million can be measured.
N40 million of research that names no result
A further N40,000,000 is recorded for MTSP entrepreneurial schemes and research. The records do not state what was studied, who conducted the research, how many entrepreneurs the schemes reached or what programme came out of the spending. No research report is named in the records, and the MTSP acronym is not defined. N40 million stands against a description, and nothing behind the description is published.
N82.5 million for ILO meetings, with no meeting counted
The sixth records N82,500,000 for ILO mandatory meetings and conferences across the agency. The records do not state the number of meetings, the destinations, the delegates or the days the sum covered, and they do not separate air fares, estacodes, registration fees or accommodation. The word mandatory in the description establishes that the International Labour Organization required attendance at its meetings. It does not account for N82.5 million, and no meeting by meeting breakdown accompanies the figure.
The account the law requires
The Public Procurement Act 2007 rests public procurement on open competition, transparency and documented value for money. Lump sums recorded against broad descriptions, with no competition record, no contract and no delivery evidence published behind them, fall short of that standard, and Section 38 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 places the duty to spend only as appropriated and for value received on the agency that recorded them. The records themselves carry the indictment: six expenditures, N879.1 million, and no account of the airtime bought, the adverts placed, the items supplied, the people trained, the research delivered or the meetings attended.
