NPA not encouraging development of deep seaports —Promoter

One of the promoters of the establishment of deep seaports in the Eastern flank of the country has accused the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) of working against the establishment of a deep seaport in the country.

Speaking to the Nigerian Tribune exclusively, the deep seaport promoter who declined not to have his name in print in order not to jeopardise the project explained that getting approval initially from the NPA was tasking, but that since getting approval, the agency has not given the facility the necessary support towards development.

“NPA body language has not been the best in recent months. Its like the agency does not want the development of deep seaports in the country. At every opportunity, we are asked not to rush into developing this facility because of the low cargo volume in the Eastern ports of the country, but is this facility not been built to increase cargo volume in the country?

“Does the NPA want the status quo to remain? Why will the agency want us to wait until cargo volume increases before a Deep seaport is completed? Without a Deep seaport in that region, has the fate of that region fared any better?

“The volume of cargo in that region is not encouraging and the world is currently tilting toward the development of Deep seaports globally, yet we are working against such projects here in our own country, is this how to move forward?

“The NPA is talking of the need to look at existing ports and see their berth occupancy and then know exactly what the issues were in terms of their tendencies. All that we have done in the past.

“Why the Eastern ports has failed to rival the Lagos ports for volume of cargo share are things we have looked at and found out that a deep seaport will remedy. The NPA should not be seen to be working against the development of deep seaports in the country because even our neighbours in Cameroon and Abidjan are already into deep seaports and this could jeopardise Nigeria’s chances of being a hub in the continent.

“These same issues that have plagued the Eastern port has been over flogged for years. We keep paying lip services to these issues for years, yet nothing is being done to remedy them. Now that a group of investors have deemed it fit to invest according to their strength, the NPA keeps telling them to wait and for how long? Is this government not in support of such projects?”

It would be recalled that the NPA Managing Director, Ms Hadiza Bala Usman, while delivering a lecture recently with the title, ‘The Prospects of a Hub, Port Status, a Deep Sea Port and Everything In Between,  called for caution on the parts of the government and people of Nigeria in the establishment of Deep Sea Ports across the country.

The Managing Director of NPA, who made this call at the second edition of a Day with Nigerian Maritime Students in Lagos, stated that though there was necessity for Deep Sea Ports, its development must have a correlation with cargo projections as port was all about cargo.

Represented by the General Manager Monitoring and Compliance West of the NPA, Captain Iheanacho Ebubeogu, Usman averred that if the investors’ ambition was beyond cargo off take that was expected now and in the foreseeable future, most of those projects may end up failing or where infrastructures were built, they may end up becoming white elephant projects since there was the need to make projections as well as the need to look at the existing ports and see their berth occupancy and then know exactly what the issues were in terms of their tendencies.