By Fredrick Wright
THE Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN) has bemoaned the slow pace of work on the Marine Beach Bridge in Apapa and the TinCan Island Port access road.
Chairman, STOAN, Princess Vicky Haastrup, in an interview with journalists in Lagos, said the poor access road to the ports is posing grave danger to their businesses and Nigeria’s economy as a whole.
Haastrup said: “The construction of the bridge is going at a very slow pace and that bleeds my heart, because his bridge is very strategic to port operations.
“There is construction ongoing on TinCan Island road, so the only access road to both Apapa and Tinca Island ports now is this bridge and in the last couple of weeks I did not see a single person working on the bridge.
“The question is why is the contractor not speeding up the work. This is a disgrace for Nigeria. It is such a nightmare for people to come to Apapa to do business. Maritime is a strategic sector to the economy of Nigeria. The port is the gateway to Nigeria’s economy, and what we have today it such a nightmare. It is practically impossible to access the ports.
“Lay down time of ships is increasing by the day because trucks and people could not access the ports.
“I will use this opportunity to appeal to the Federal Government and Federal Ministry of Works to please ensure that the contractor speed up the pace of work on the bridge and road. They should be mobilized to speed up the work,” she stated.
On the issue of barge operators, she said government is not stopping any barge operation. They only barred those who are operating within the marina line, which is understandable because they are creating total mess there.
“The barge operation is very important at the moment because the roads are in deplorable condition, so we cannot afford to stop total barge operations,” she said.
However, the Federal Government has pleaded with motorists to be patient with the contractor handling the repair of the bridge, saying that the repair work has 18 months timeline that is expected to end in April next year.
Federal Controller of Works, Kayode Popoola, was reported to have said: “What looks like delay is not delay in the real sense of it, considering the nature of work the contractor is doing there. It is purely technical and takes a lot of planning and careful execution. What we are fixing there are broken joints involving replacing old, worn out bearings and connecting joints,”
