Collaborate with CCECC, 2021 remains sacrosanct, Amaechi charges APM Terminals

The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has charged Nigeria’s largest container port terminal operator, APM Terminals to allow China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC) – the contractor handling the Lagos-Ibadan rail project – unhindered access to the Lagos ports to ensure the completion of the rail project by January 2021.

This is even as the minister revealed that the January 2021 date for the commissioning of the Apapa port section alongside the Lagos-Ibadan railway remains sacrosanct.

Speaking at the weekend when he visited the ports as part of his routine inspection of the Lagos-Ibadan rail project, Rotimi Amaechi stated that, “I have already told the president that we are commissioning this project in January 2021. I am working towards that time. We must achieve that time.

“The moment we begin the movement of cargoes from Lagos to Ibadan by rail, then the Lagos gridlock will reduce drastically and that’s my objective in January.”

Earlier, the Country Manager of APM Terminal, Klaus Laursen, showed the minister the monitoring station which gives real-time information on what is happening in all sections of the terminal, saying ”the essence is to have it here to control and monitor cargoes coming in and going out of the terminal.”

Klaus Laursen explained that APM Terminals decided to introduce a monitoring station in Nigeria as it is the trend in Shanghai and other global ports where similar operations take place.

Recall that operations at the Apapa container terminal, operated by APM Terminals, were paralysed in late November when CCECC mobilised to site, blocked the truck exit gate and began demolition of structures inside the port terminal.

In a related development, while inspecting the Tin-Can ports access road also at the weekend, Amaechi assured motorists that the heavy vehicular gridlock which has been an impediment to the movement of goods and services in and out of the port will cease very soon.

The minister who spoke while in the company of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Transportation, Magdalene Ajani; MD, NPA, Hadiza Bala Usman; and Executive Secretary, Nigerian Shippers Council, Hassan Bello, promised to come up with a better solution in addressing the problem.

“Give us one week to evaluate the problem and come up with a better solution,” Amaechi stated.

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