Newsfront Online …Telling the Public as it is
The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), on Tuesday, disclosed that the authority is not contributing to increase in the cost of doing businesses at the nation’s seaports.
Speaking on the Business Segment of TVC monitored by LEADERSHIP, the NPA managing director, Mohammed Bello-Koko, disclosed that the Authority has not increased its tariff in the last 30 years. According to Bello-Koko, the authority only reviewed its towage charges to meet current realities.
He said, “the NPA has not increased its tariff since 1993. The rates that we have been using since 1993 is still the same rate that we are using today. The last time the NPA increased its tariff was in 1993. Yes, the cost of doing business at the ports may be high, but we have not increased our tariff in the last 30 years.”
Speaking on the towage service, Bello- Koko said, “It was in 2012 or 2014 that the NPA Increased the cost of Towage. Every other tariff has remained as it is since 1993. The cost of doing business could be increasing, but it’s not attributable to the tariff and rates of the NPA.
harmonise the tariffs and merge them because they were so many. “Before then, if anybody is looking for our tariffs, they will find many tariffs broken into pieces. So what we did then was to merge them,” he disclosed. On rehabilitation of the Tin-Can Island port, the NPA MD said the situation at the port is worse eventhough every other ports needs some level of rehabilitation too.
“What we have been doing is palliative works, trying to manage the situation. However, it has now gotten to a stage where we feel palliative works are no longer tenable. “So what we have done is an authority-wide NEED assessment, where we checked those infrastructures. After that, we took a decision that it is time we fully reconstruct those infrastructures.
“Tin-Can Port is the one that is in a worst state, very terrible. We believe it is time to reconstruct and rehabilitate Tin-Can Port. There are some Quays at other ports too that need rehabilitation. Some Quays in Apapa, Warri, Calabar, Onne and virtually all the ports need rehabilitation. Our assessment showed that we need about $800m to rehabilitate all the ports,” he stated.
