Stakeholders Decry Infrastructural Decay In Ports

Stakeholders in the maritime industry have condemned the pace of the nation’s Port development, describing it as too slow compared to what obtains in advanced countries  and what the standard should be.

As a way forward, they said, Nigerian Ports should be given the required attention as regards development considering its strategic role in engendering the growth and development of the economy.

Speaking to The Tide on Wednesday  in Port Harcourt, the Managing Director of Spat  Shipping Limited, said that the ports is the gate way to economic development and prosperity for many nations, providing  opportunity for higher per centage of goods to move in and out of a country. He lamented that Nigeria is yet to develop ports infrastructures.

According to him, “countries like the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates have developed their ports to become money spinning sectors to the extent of contributing huge revenues to their economy.

They have been able to achieve this due to good infrastructural  development and the reduction of corruption to the barest  minimum. But the same cannot be said  of Nigerian Ports. The sector is faced with a lot of problems, such as poor access  roads to the ports, multiple government agencies and corruption among others”, he added.

A key player in the maritime sector, John Duru, in his view, told The Tide that corruption  is causing  a lot of harm for the Nigeria’s Port system, describing it as a major factor responsible for poor infrastructural development at the nation’s ports.

He said the problem of corruption in Nigeria can be attributed to hypocrisy, as people  who supposed  to fight corruption, are only paying lip service to it, saying that government should reverse the trend before it ruins the economy of the country.