The Federal Government has said it would adopt fresh measures to fully utilise the nation's inland water transportation to facilitate mass movement of imported consignments as a way of reducing the pressure on existing seaport facilities.
President Goodluck Jonathan had last year commissioned the Onitsha River Port, one of the biggest river ports in the country which is yet to commence effective port operations, as the port had remained under lock and key nearly one year after it was commissioned.
Senior Special Adivser to the President on Maritime Service, Leke Oyewole, who spoke in a telephone interview, noted that the government is perturbed by the build up of imported goods at the existing seaports.
According to him, with the re-launch of container haulage Shehu by rail, the opening of more river ports in the country will facilitate mass movement of consignments whether bulk or containerised goods as both methods of mass movement of consignments will complement each other.
He disclosed that apart from the present arrangement whereby the Nigerian Railways Corporation NRC lifts containers out of the port, government would ensure that the nation's seaports are not subjected to another rigour of congestion.
Oyewole, who is a member of the Presidential Committee on Port Reforms, which helped in decongesting the ports in 2011 with the transfer of containers numbering over 5,000 to Ikorodu Lighter Terminal, noted that the committee will consolidate on earlier progress made in terms of decongesting the ports.
"The Federal Government is working to ensure that all the possible causes of port congestion are eliminated. As you may be aware, the port access road projects are on course, especially the Apapa –Oshodi Expressway to ensure that the consignments are not delayed while on transit"
He also said that the government is monitoring proper conduct of the truck drivers to ensure that any one that would come to the port must be on call to forestall a situation whereby the park along the roads or inside the port terminals to block the available spaces.
Investigation shows that apart from the challenges at the scanning sites, the threat of congestion is further made potent by the fact that this time of the year, the third and last quarters of the year are synonymous with port congestion due to usual increase in the volume of imported cargo.
On the continuous parking of trucks on port access roads, especially around Tin Can Island Port, he disclosed that the government is suspecting sabotage on the part of some terminal operators, who have slowed down the pace of movement of cargo in and out of the terminals, which has helped to worsen the situation.
"We suspect there is sabotage somewhere because we were told that one of the terminal operators claimed that its computer systems broke down and so it could not release any cargo, which worsened the build-up of trucks bearing containers on the entrance of the terminal, which spilled into the roads", he said.
It was also gathered that many of the terminal operators have designed ways of making additional revenue from rent charges by causing artifi cial delays in the movement of the containers thereby making them attract more storage charges.
