It’s time to reconstruct, and rehabilitate Tin-Can Port quay walls – NPA

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has raised an alarm about the impending danger of not reconstructing the dilapidated state of seaports across the country.

Speaking on TVC News on Tuesday night, which was monitored by BusinessDay, Mohammed Bello-Koko, the managing director of the NPA, said the authority has been doing palliatives on the quay walls at ports in order to manage the situation but it has gotten to a situation where palliative works are no more obtainable.

According to him, the NPA has carried out an authority-wide lead assessment where the port infrastructure was checked before taking a decision that there should be full rehabilitation and reconstruction of all port locations.

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“Tin-Can is the one that is in the worst state, and we believe it is time to reconstruct and rehabilitate Tin-Can. There are some other quays in Apapa that need rehabilitation; the same thing with Warri, Onne, Rivers and Calabar Ports. Virtually, all the port locations need rehabilitation, and the assessment says that we need about $800 million to rehabilitate those port locations,” Bello-Koko said.

Commenting on the worries expressed by port users on the increasing cost of doing business in the nation’s seaports, the NPA boss said the port authority has not increased tariffs in the last 30 years because the last time NPA increased its tariff was in 1993.

“It was in 2014 that the Ports Authority increased the cost of towage in Nigerian ports, but every other tariff has remained as it is since 1993. The cost of doing business could be high or increasing but it is not attributed to the rates and tariff of the Nigerian Ports Authority,” he explained.

He added that the NPA only harmonised the tariff in 2012 because they were so many broken down into pieces, which was why the NPA merged them together.