Similar to the notorious traffic gridlock experienced daily by port users doing business in Apapa and Tin-Can Island Ports, their counterparts doing business in Calabar and Onne, are facing the same situation due to the deplorable state of East-West Road leading to Onne and Ibom-Ikon Road that leads to Calabar.
BusinessDay visit to Onne Port shows that it now takes an average of three to five hours to get to Onne from Port Harcourt due to the bad portions, portholes and gulley on the East-West Road.
With the bad portions, port users, cargo owners and other motorists are now losing man-hour on the road, which many say, is affecting their businesses as the importers pay premium as demurrage to shipping companies for not taking delivery of their containers as and when due.
It was also discovered that several bulk cargo and empty container carrying trucks were parked indiscriminately on the East-West Road, leading to Onne Port from Port Harcourt.
Aamir Mirza, managing director, of the West African Container Terminal (WACT), the terminal operator in Onne, who solicited for government support in addressing infrastructural issues limiting Onne Port, said that improving the state of the East-West Road and road connectivity to the port, will position Onne to become a leading port in West Africa.
Reacting to this, Umana Okon Umana, managing director, Oil and Gas Free Zone Authority (OGFZA), said in Onne that on resumption of office, he realised that the bad state of East-West Road compels shippers and other ports users to spend three to four hours on the road in order to have access to Onne Port.
According to him, the Niger-Delta Development Commission (NDDC) together with other private investors, had to come to rescue the situation, but promised to ensure that the Commission would help to ameliorate the plight of port users in Onne and the entire Oil and Gas Free Zone.
Hadiza Bala Usman, managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), said in a recent interview in Lagos, the NPA, believed there is need to improve the fortunes of Nigerian ports, because the importers bring their cargoes to the ports through the shipping lines.
She said the state of the roads linking Eastern ports to the hinterland, is another issue people look at before deciding the port destination of their cargoes.
She said a major reason the NPA recently made the decision to give 10 percent discount to selected ports in the East was to improve the ease at which cargo owners get their cargoes to their final destination.
“We have identified all the roads linking our ports to the hinterland, and have written the Ministry of Works for them to prioritise rehabilitating those roads. From geographical calculation, Calabar is closer to the North-East and the North-Central part of the country, but there is a bridge (in bad state) that does not permit movement of containers,” she noted.
She added that the Ministry of Works, last year, approved the contract for fixing of the Ibom-Ikon Bridge in Calabar to ease movement in and out Calabar Port.
AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
