NIWA moves to revive N9.4bn River ports

The National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) is set to revive three of its moribund river ports valued at about N9.4 billion.

This is even as it said it intends to tackle the frequency of boat mishaps in the nation’s waterways.

The move is aimed at repositioning the Authority to also contribute to the economic growth of the Marine and Blue Economy Ministry.

The moribund river ports are Baro, Uguta, and Lokoja River ports. While the Baro Port was built for N2.6billion, Oguta and Lokoja were built for N2.7billon and N4.1billion respectively.

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The Onitsha River Port alone has the potential of generating over N23 billion to the federal government in 30 years.

It would be recalled that the Nigerian Fleet Implementation Committee (NFIC) said that the maritime industry in Nigeria remains a very critical sector of the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy but this has not been fully explored.

Despite being a maritime nation, Nigeria has not been able to take advantage of the economic benefits of being a littoral state nor has the country been able to harness its huge inland waterway resources.

To set things right, the Managing Director of NIWA, Bola Oyebamiji, said the Authority is ready to revive three of the nation’s river ports, namely Baro, Uguta and Lokoja ports worth about N9.4 billion.

While the Baro River Port has been successfully completed and concessioned, the Oguta and Lokoja River ports are still undergoing construction.

However, speaking on the current state of affairs of NIWA, Oyebamiji, said private sector operators manage business better that they also have enough funds to complete the construction of the river ports.

To attract private investment interest in the new Agenda of the Authority, the NIWA boss took a tour of the Onitsha, Warri and Port Harcourt Offices of the Authority.

Speaking during the tour, the NIWA MD called for deeper private sector participation in the blue economy initiative with a view to harnessing greater benefits for national development.

Oyebamiji also said that NIWA is determined to revamp the nation’s economy by consolidating on Public/Private Partnerships (PPP) initiatives.

In the words of the NIWA MD, “This initiative is part of our deliberate plans to open up new opportunities to maximise the full economic potential of the nation’s waterways.

“The PPP is the way to go but we need people or investors, who have genuine intentions and purposes to enable us to align with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda for economic recovery.”

The agency’s boss tasked the staff to live up to expectation by working harder in revenue generation that could open rooms to better their welfare.

He warned the staff against indolence and laxity since he was committed to staff welfare and revenue generation.

As part of efforts to expand Nigeria’s navigable waterways, the NIWA MD upon assumption of office, charged his area managers to increase the number of navigable waterways that the country currently has from 3,000kilometres to 5,000km of navigable inland waterways.

Oyebamiji said the agency would licence 2,200 boats annually in Lagos and train 1,500 skippers before the end of 2024.

The NIWA boss stated that Lagos being the hub of inland waterways activities in Nigeria had already seen the deployment of five patrol boats to monitor activities on the state waterways.

“Nigeria has about 10,000km of waterways in this country, but anytime you search via Google, you would always find out that only 3,000km are navigable. I have given the area managers a target of increasing navigable waterways in Nigeria from 3,000km to 5,000km.

“This means that as part of the deliverables that I gave the area managers, NIWA has to dredge an additional 2,000km of waterways to meet the target of 5,000km of navigable inland waterways.”