Why NPA Must Urgently Rescue Calabar Seaport
. Encourage Shipping Lines To Eastern Port, Stakeholders Urges Bello-Koko
By Fredrick Wright
Nigeria is currently losing billions of Naira to poor policies and underutilisation of Calabar seaport, which has continued to suffer draft limitations for over 16 years now.
Apart from the monetary losses, experts believed that the troubled seaport would have lifted Nigeria’s trade, and generate huge employment for the teeming unemployed youths in the country.
Calabar port, along with its peers in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Onne, are the gateway for sea trade in the South-Eastern Nigeria. The port is not only designed to serve the South-South and South-East regions, but also other neighbouring countries like Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
Draft at approach of the Calabar channel is currently at 6.4 metres at high tide and 5.4 metres at low tide, and the low draft as scared shipping lines away from calling the seaport.
As at the time of concessioning the port, the agreement stipulated that the Federal Government will take the draft to 9.5metres; and the Bureau on Public Enterprise (BPE) had assured that this would be achieved on start of business, but the situation remains the same since 2006 when the concession programme took effect.
This simply means that the Federal Government, represented by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has failed to play its part of the agreement, thereby putting the concessionaire under pressure of meeting expectations on earnings and service delivery.
In March 2018, the former Managing Director, NPA, Hadiza Bala Usman, at a stakeholders’ meeting in Calabar, said the authority had placed an advert for the contract, and would commence the survey of the channel within a week in preparation for award of the dredging contract, but years after that promise, the dredging of Calabar Port Channel remains a dream unrealistic.
As days go by, the all-important seaport suffers from the shallow water challenges, it experiences low container tonnage, big vessels keep away while it losses cargoes to neighbouring countries.
Stakeholders believed that the Calabar Port if dredged would help to reduce excessive pressure from the ever-busy Lagos ports, while saving huge revenue losses.
Recall that about $56million contract for the dredging of Calabar Port Channel was awarded in 2006, but it remained uncompleted. The Federal Government awarded another contract in November 2014, for N20billion to complete the project. The contract, which was signed by the NPA, BPE and the Calabar Channel Management, was for the port to be dredged up to 9.8 metres, but it also hit the rock.
Managing Director, NPA, Mohammed Bello Koko, said the dredging of Calabar port is being delayed due to the litigation that followed the alleged breach of contract on dredging of the channel.
Bello Koko, during his visitation to Calabar port recently said NPA is concerned that the dredging of Calabar port has dragged for long and it is doing everything possible to ensure that the port is dredged and put into full operation as soon as possible.
He said: “Calabar port has the longest channel in Nigeria. There was an existing dredging contract which was stalled and as generated disagreement. The matter has been in court and we cannot approve another contract until the matter is resolved. So, we are trying to settle out of court, so that we can proceed on the dredging”
Bello Koko urged importers and exporters to patronise Calabar port, adding that a review of the incentives would be done soonest.
He said: “We need to sit with the liners too to see how to increase the concessionary rate and ensure that this trickles down to Nigerians. You have no reason to send a container to Lagos and pay millions when you know that when you come to Calabar you will pay lesser,” he said.
Managing Director/Chief Operating Officer, ECM, Adedayo Balogun, sought support from NPA to make Calabar port more attractive to shipping lines and importers.
He said the port has faced challenges of draft limitations for several years along with towage issues which have discouraged some shipping lines from calling Calabar port.
He said: “The liners are asking for ridiculous concession. For them, it cost more to take their vessel to Calabar than to take it to sister ports because of the challenges of draft. So, what we do is to attract them with a very low tariff. You will be surprised that the tariff we operate was the tariff approved by NPA since 2007”.
Balogun said the NPA should increase the rebate to shipping line to about 30% so as to attract them.
“The 10% rebate is grossly inadequate, the port was giving 30% rebate before the concession, and the challenges that made them introduce the rebate are still there. We as a company has continued to give them rebate, but we need NPA to also support it, so as to attract the liners, ” he said.
Meanwhile, another terminal operator, who preferred anonymity said: “Nothing new has happed on the channel. It is really vey annoying because government seems to have abandoned the Calabar Port, as they appear to concentrate only on the Lagos Ports. Lagos Port Complex is currently challenged by the poor access roads, where other ports such as Calabar can provide relief, but it is rather unfortunate that our government is not looking that way.
“If NPA is claiming to be trying to settle out of court, how long will the terminal operators wait for that to happen. There have been several failed promises. Sometimes, NPA said it has started survey, but we later realise it was all lies. How long does it take to do bathometric survey? Look at the situation in Lagos. The ports are almost collapsed. What are the remedies? We should think about the Eastern ports and their limitations, so that we can use them to relief the Lagos ports, and reduce pressure on the roads. The critical issue is that of dredging, so why is government finding it difficult to carry out the dredging?” the source queried.
The terminals have been making huge losses since the concession of the ports in 2006 (about 16 years now), while the government fails to play its part of the agreement.
House of Representatives member, Dr Alex Egbona.
House of Representatives member, Dr Alex Egbona, who represents the Abi/Yakurr Federal Constituency, who earlier sponsored a motion for the dredging of the Calabar Port, said: “Each time I think of the Calabar Port, my heart bleeds. Each time I remember that we have a seaport that is lying idle, wasted, redundant, just wasting away, when the Lagos port is busy and making the economy of that state to boom, I develop stomach ache. It makes me want to sometimes think that the federal government hates us. I may be wrong, but that appears to be the best way to describe the abandonment of the Calabar Port.”
Describing the port as the oldest seaport in the country, he said the federal government must, immediately, take steps to ensure that the Calabar Port is given a life of its own.
“A quick dredging of the Calabar Seaport will help decongest the Lagos Port and reduce the hardship of waiting for hours to clear goods.
“The federal government cannot pretend not to know of or hear about our hue and cry about the Calabar seaport. I believe it is a sin for them to continue to keep silent about this. If they do not feel okay with handing it over to private concerns, let them re-award the contract for the dredging of the port and then supervise it very closely, just to be sure that the depth would be good enough to allow very big ships to berth at the port,” he said.
Obong of Calabar, Edidem Ekpo Okon Abasi Otu V, also urged NPA to fast track the dredging of Calabar seaports.
He said the waterways had been their highway and their forefathers had been taking care of it.
“Unfortunately, activities there were killed suddenly and everything died in Calabar. We have been crying for sometime and we believe that the game changer (Bello-Koko) as he is being called will make the change for us.
“I appeal that this should not be political but critical. Do something, take the other way round to ensure that things work well for us in Calabar” he urged the NPA boss.
