Onitsha River Port Has Huge Potentials

Mrs. Ify Anazonwu Akerele

 Director-General of the Nigerian Chamber of Shipping (NCS), Mrs. Ify Anazonwu Akerele, in an interview with This Day disclosed that the Onitsha River Port has the potential to be viable. She said that the current efforts to review the nation’s Cabotage law will address all the inadequacies of the coastal shipping regime.

“The River Port in Onitsha has huge potentials of being viable. But as you know, everything in Nigeria is linked to many other factors. It will definitely ease a lot of traders’ nightmares of having goods from Lagos by roads. For example, what 15 trucks can bring down just one truck can bring that from Lagos or Warri to Onitsha. If you talk to people in haulage business, they will tell you that their most vibrant route is Onitsha. Everything that comes from China and all over goes to Onitsha and where there are people, there is trade, there is money.”

“So that port definitely can be viable. What we pray for is the willingness; government has shown a very encouraging step by ensuring that the waters are dredged to the draught of 2.5 metres. But of course, somebody is going to manage the port. Now, ICRC is carrying out their investigations and putting together terms of concessioning. But it also involves constant dredging of that water to be able to manage that port to make it viable. It is going to be a responsibility because you have to constantly dredge.”

“I don’t believe government can maintain constant dredging, so that is one area that is going to gulp a lot of money from whoever is going to manage the port. Bringing in goods from Lagos is something I am still trying to figure out. It is doable to take goods from barges here (Lagos) and go along the coast into the hinterland to Onitsha. But how possible is it with regard to safety?  We have the Navy again to be involved to protect the waters. They have quiet waters offshore Warri and Port Harcourt.”

“Will modern vessels go there, will people like Maersk go there? How are we going to persuade traders when they are sending their goods to Nigeria to put as their final destination Onitsha. This needs a lot of awareness creation, understanding a lot more effort by major stakeholders and government regulatory bodies, NIWA is responsible and I believe they should be able to live up to expectation in this regard. If all these things are put into place, the sky is the limit for the River Port and Inland Container Depots (ICDs) which will now become alive because people will find a use for the ICDs. But right now, we are still using the old-fashioned Lagos ports with the attendant risk of containers that may fall on the road. But if Onitsha is put in use, it is a viable project.”

On the issue of security and the cost of transporting containers coould be astrronomically high. She assured traders that transporting containers by river is safer and cheaper than doing so by road, insisting that the major  problem will be how  to navigate the water and how to encourage traders to embrace the use of  barges to move barges.  

 

 “It is still not very safe driving on the road because you could still be waylaid. It is probably difficult to transport a container by road. By river those who want to hijack a container also have to have their own barges or have their own means of taking the containers. I am not sure that will be a problem. I don’t know of it being very expensive, but if one truck costs the same as carrying 20 trucks, you work out the economics, carrying 20 containers by barge is cheaper than carrying  one container by road. I think it is definitely cheaper to do that.”

“We definitely need security, the Navy needs to be fully involved. I am not sure it is easy to steal a container, but you never know piracy is something that they have well-versed people on the water who can come up with the means of stealing a container. But I don’t think that is really a problem. The major problem is how the waters can be navigated and how to encourage traders, whoever is saying that is probably gaining more by truck, may be a haulage company, they will always come up with negative ideas. There is nowhere in the world that moving goods by barges is more expensive than by trucks.”