The failure of the Federal Government to dredge the Calabar Channel is impeding economic activities in several regions of the country, the Bureau of Public Enterprises has said.
The Acting Director-General, BPE, Dr. Vincent Akpotaire, said this at the Calabar Port shortly after the post-privatisation monitoring of the terminal operators at the port, according to a statement made available to our correspondent in Abuja on Monday by the Head, Public Communications at the agency, Mr. Alex Okoh.
The acting director-general, who was represented by the Director, Post-privatisation Monitoring, Mr. Chigbo Anichebe, who led the BPE team to the port, said the agency would immediately come up with a report on its assessment of the port and present it to the Federal Government for quick intervention for the dredging, which commenced some time ago, but suddenly stopped.
He said that after the interaction with the terminal operators, the key thing that played out was the non-dredging of the Calabar Channel.
Akpotaire said the Calabar Port was central to the North-East, North-Central, South-East and South-South regions of the country.
He said, “You can’t ask a ship to come to the Calabar Port and dock because the depth is so low. And that is the critical thing we expect the Federal Government to do. As soon as the channel is dredged, Nigeria can, apart from imports, also export as there are many things to export; but if the ships can’t come in, you can’t export. You can’t take smaller ships to export goods to Europe.
“Nnewi, for instance, imports heavy duty equipment. In Onitsha, they import all kinds of goods. Aba exports and imports a lot of products, and the Calabar Port should be the hub but currently, it is not.
“People will transport their goods to Lagos to export, while others will import through the Lagos Port and haul them by trucks and the roads are not good. So, why not use the Calabar Port to ease their sufferings?”
The BPE boss added, “The Calabar Port is not what we were expecting. We expected to see here what is happening in Lagos and Port Harcourt ports, where activities are booming; but unfortunately, the Calabar Port has gone back to the pre-2006 levels.
“We have interacted with the port operators who have told us why the port is not performing as expected and have given the bureau an avalanche of reasons why the port is not performing.
And the major challenge they say is the non-dredging of the Calabar Channel.
“No ocean going vessel can come into the channel. We were expecting the draught to be deepened but as it is now, no big or container laden vessels can come into the port.”
The Calabar Port was given out as concession to Intels, Ecomarine and Shoreline Logistics in 2006.
Under the concession agreement, the Federal Government was contractually obligated to dredge the Calabar Channel but it never did until in 2013 when the Nigerian Ports Authority appointed a channel manager, Calabar Channel Management, which mobilised and started dredging in 2014 but later stopped.
