In a bid to ensure better regulation and management of ports and harbours across the country, the House of Representatives Committee on Ports and Harbours has assured that the dredging of Calabar port will commence soon.
The Committee chairman, Rt. Hon Nnaji Nnolim, said this on Thursday when the team paid an investigative visit to the Calabar Port management.
Speaking during an interactive meeting with the management team at the port conference room, ahead of a tour of the Calabar Port Complex, Nnaji said the committee visited Calabar to inspect the Calabar Port and understand the challenges the port was facing.
Speaking further, the Chairman noted that “we have discussed with the management of Calabar port and they expressed their position on the difficulties they’re having and it reflects the impression we had while coming, and one of them is dredging.
“For a long time the dredging of Calabar port stopped due to the issue the contractor had with the Nigerian Ports Authority and they went to court and as at today, they are no more in court. The dredging of Calabar port is in the budget of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) brought to us and we are looking at it to see whether what they have in the budget is enough considering what we’ve seen on ground. So we may increase the budget on dredging or do something else about it.
“The program on Ports rehabilitation will commence very soon. The committee strongly believes that we’ll do everything possible to get Calabar port to partake on the ongoing rehabilitation. I believe by the time we do the rehabilitation of the port, some of the issues you mentioned will reduce. I’m discussing with committee on Marine transport in the Senate, so definitely whatever decision that will be taken, will be taken by both the Senate and the House of Rep, he said.
He also said that Calabar Port is a very old port and has the longest channel of about 165 nautical miles. Adding that after the contractor returns to the site, the draft will be raised to 10 meters, which will make it easier for the port to accommodate larger vessels, which in turn will create more jobs.
“On the issue of increment in concession rate, we are going to discuss with the Nigerian Ports Authority and then on the issue of accessible roads, when we met with the Governor he told us he has plans for the roads, not just because of NPA but because of other state assets.
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On his part, the Deputy Governor of Cross River State, Hon Peter Odey assured Calabar Port of more fruitful collaboration and disclosed that on the issue of access roads, the state government had paid compensation to indigenes of Odukpani to the tune of about N400 million, assuring that work will soon commence on that part. Adding that the state security adviser will collaborate with the Port’s internal security for improved service.
The Calabar Port Manager, Mr Olumati Festus, commended the House committee for bringing the port into the spotlight. He noted that despite problems in the system, the port authority is making efforts in collaboration with the terminal operators and relevant stakeholders to maintain operations.
“For the past 25 years we’ve not received a container vessel, in fact we have to use our technique to bring in vessels, we mostly consider when the tide is high then we call in vessel to come otherwise the vessel will go underground, we’ve been doing our best. If the dredging is done, there’ll be a lot of vessels here.
“We are hoping that your kind consideration also would be given to some of the challenges that would improve operations most especially the collapsed berth at Shoreline Jetty and the RIG Delta Queen Occupying Intel’s Berth since 2012,” he noted.