With two projects on-going and a third under consideration, the gridlock at Nigeria’s busiest ports – Apapa and Tin-Can – might see a significant improvement with traffic diverted to the newer facilities once completed.
Bloomberg reports that Nigeria is currently building a new deep-sea port and additional facilities which would reduce congestion in Lagos port where delay in moving commodities in and out has slowed commerce and cost businesses significantly.
The projects include a public-private partnership in the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos, the Ibom seaport around the Niger Delta region and a third which would possibly be in Badagry, close to Benin Republic.
The information was made known by Hadiza Bala Usman, managing director of Nigerian Ports Authority, in an interview with Bloomberg.
Usman also said the government has plans to improve the state of roads around the ports as well as other infrastructure to “ease the transportation of goods including cars, computers, food and machinery”.
Apapa and Tin-Can Island Ports handle close to 70 percent of the entire Nigerian import cargo but most of these are transported on roads putting severe pressure on the infrastructure and resulting in heavy congestion around the axis.
Execution of projects to improve road and other infrastructures around the two ports would ease business operations and create more wealth for the nation.
