Stakeholder Tasks Maritime Sector On Dev

Maritime stakehold
ers have  been tasked on development in the sector in this year 2015 to ensure effective operations  and attract the much needed infrastructural development.
Speaking to The Tide on Friday in Port Harcourt the chairman, Port Consultative Council (PCC), Chief Kunle Folarin said stakeholders in the maritime sector must meet this year to critically address  the problems and challenges facing  the development of the sector.
Folarin said the challenge of human  capacity development in Nigeria’s maritime sector  must be addressed  to ensure  the availability of the needed manpower, in the various sub-sectors of the maritime industry.
He said that the stakeholders must properly address the challenge  of building  human capacity  in the maritime sector in 2015 that would encourage investors to have confidence in the sector for them to establish business and thereby create  thousands  of employment opportunities for the  unemployed  Nigerians in the nation’s maritime sub-sector.
The PCC boss said investors were ready to build shipyards in Nigeria if the issue of capacity building that would provide local skilled manpower was properly addressed by stakeholders.
He said shipyard was a must, but investors need the skilled manpower in that area to work there, stressing that investors would gain through the building of local crafts for  skilled manpower.
According to him, the maritime industry through the establishment of the shipyard  by investors can  start building  the medium tankers that  can  ferry petroleum  products of over 10,000  dead weight vessels, and even the big carriers or VICC carrier  or container vessels or RORO Vessels.
Folarin further explained that through  local skilled manpower  Nigeria could build thug boats and pilot boats stressing that this will provide employment to not less that 4,00 people.
He enjoined stakeholders in the maritime industry to join foreign investor to take  a critical look at the master plan of the  Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and consider the development of Green fields, the proposed new ports and  increasing capacity of the existing ports.
He added that the port access  roads, development and other infrastructure outlined in the NPA’s  master plan within the various port complexes  would attract the right expertise  in creating a martime city for easy operations of ships and restore confidence of investors in the sector.

 
Philip Okparaji