The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has outlined plans to invest about $1.1 billion (about N800 billion) in the various ports across the country in furtherance of its current efforts to reduce the high turnaround times of vessels and improve ports efficiency.
The Managing Director of the Authority, Mohammed Bello-Koko, in an X post on Monday, said the rehabilitation process would reduce human interference by ensuring that most of its process are automated.
The industry expert explained that the planned investments would help in upgrading the decayed ports infrastructure in six major ports, namely TinCan, Apapa, Rivers, Delta, Calabar and Onne ports.
The post reads: “Due to the decaying quay walls, the Terminal Operators are unable to deploy modern cargo handling equipment such as ship-to-shore cranes This often results in high turn around times of vessels.
“The rehabilitation will include: Tin-Can Island Port Complex (TCIPC) Reconstruction of 2, 563m Quay Wall & Pavement including other works.
“Lagos Port Complex (Apapa Quays) Reconstruction of 2,020m Quay wall to replace the old gravity wall (Berths 4-14).
“Warri, Delta State Rehabilitation of collapsed 8.6 km Escravos Breakwaters, FLT 2, Onne Port Reconstruction of 200m Quay Wall.
“Warri Old Port (Terminal C) Reconstruction of 80m sheet pile wall structure. Warri Old Port (Terminal A) Reconstruction of 280m quay structure, Calabar Dockyard -Rehabilitation of the Calabar Dockyard.
“Mciver Jetty, Calabar Port Jetty reconstruction, Millero Jetty, Calabar Port Jetty Reconstruction.”
According to him, when the rehabilitation works are completed, the existing ports will be operational at full capacity and with improved efficiency, thereby reducing the TAT of vessels and cargo dwell times.
It would be recalled that while recently speaking on the financial performance of the NPA, the Managing-Director reported that it generated total revenue of N191 billion in the first half of 2023, out of which it remitted N55 billion into the Federal Government’s Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).
Bello-Koko, in a report, also disclosed that a total of 1,851 vessels visited Nigerian seaport with about 707,985 Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) of containers and 33,895,784 metric tons of cargo throughputs in the first half of 2023.
He projected with the current trend of shipping volumes, the country could generate over N500 billion from the ports’ operations by year end.
