Economic activities will soon increase at the concessioned Onitsha River Port in Anambra State as the federal government yesterday said that big cargoes will soon berth at the port.
The managing director, National Inland Waterways Authority, NIWA, George Moghalu disclosed this to State House correspondents after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential villa, Abuja.
He said that discussions were ongoing for the concession of Baro port and as well as the Oguta and Lokoja ports that are still under construction in order to reduce pressure from the government.
According to him, “For Onitsha river port, we have successfully concessioned and handed over to Universal Elysium, a company that is partnering with the Port of Antwerp for the next 30 years.
“Now, because of limited resources and to reduce pressure on the government, we opened up discussion with other interested organisations, unsolicited proposals have come for the concessioning of Baro, for the concessioning of Oguta and Lokoja though still under construction.
“So, we are discussing it with them. The advantage here is that it will reduce pressure from the government, these people own this port, complete the port, put the port to use and pay royalty to the government. So, it has a lot of advantages. And we’re working conscientiously on that.
“Before I came to office, Oguta River Port was not on the budget for quite a while, but we eventually brought it back to the budget.
“As we speak, we have finished fencing the Oguta river port. And we’re doing little by little, depending on resources available to put in place some basic infrastructure that is required for a port to operate.
“Same is applicable to Lokoja. So we’re taking it from two perspectives. Completing the building by government and concession or concession it so that the new concessionaire can complete the ports and put it to effective use.”
Asked when big ships are expected to berth on Onitsha the port, he said, “Very soon. What I did before the concession was that I was able to do a test run, move cargo between Onne and Onitsha and now we are concluding movement of cargo from Lagos to Onitsha and that will be a clincher as far as I’m concerned.”
On what his agency is doing to minimise flooding this year he said “ Yes, I agree with you that challenge is there. Proactively, what we are doing is to first of all sensitize the people, identify the critical areas and get people to know what will happen with time.
“With regards to clearing, yes, water hyacinths are being cleared on a regular basis, wrecks are removed, channels that are blocked, we do everything we can, within the limits of our resources to open up those channels so that we can have easy flow of water during this period.
“Yes, I said earlier that wrecks, even floating debris are all being removed at various locations across the entire country, as we identify them, we do the basic survey and once we identify them, we set the process in motion to remove them.
“We’re doing some now as we keep identifying them, and you know these things like water hyacinth, like wrecks, like floating debris, are not fixed items that you will say ‘I will remove now and it won’t be there again. You can remove a wreck tomorrow and by next tomorrow, another wreck will come.
“What are these wrecks? Broken down vessels that are condemned, logs and what have you. So as we identify them, using surveys, identify the coordinates, the next thing we do is to set in motion the process of removing them,” he said .
