The Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN) has said that the Nigerian port system is facing severe challenges, which have affected the visibility of the various infrastructural developments in the port industry after the concession about six years ago.
Chairperson of STOAN, Princess Vicky Haastrup who stated this while addressing members of the National Assembly said that the various terminals would have recorded higher indices, if not for the challenges.
“…the road through which we have travelled to get to where the Nigerian maritime industry is today. We would recollect that the Port Reform exercise, the implementation of which has driven the nation’s maritime industry in the great trend we all have witnessed over the past five years, was borne out of the patriotic zeal with which the present leadership of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has decided to turn around the endowed potentials of the maritime industry toward an accelerated economic growth and overall development, through a concise private sector driven management. Since the take-off of the concession programme in 2006 noticeable giant strides can be readily identified by any discerning observer, in practically all the Nigerian ports”.
On how to tackle the challenges, Haastrup called on NPA to brace up to the challenge of coordinating the provision of effective security for the land and seaward approaches to the nation’s ports, and develop a culture of continuous maintenance dredging of the navigational channels in order to facilitate provision of the required draft at all times.
She equally tasked government through NPA to address the dilapidated common user roads and port Gate.
For effective harbor services delivery, she said that a minimum of two to three companies should be registered in order to inject competition and efficiency.
BY SHIPS & PORTS
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