The Chairman, Port Con
sultative Council (PCC), Chief Kunle Folarin, has suggested the building of the Fourth Mainland bridge for easy evacuation of cargo from the proposed Lekki Deep Seaport.
Folarin made the suggestion in an interview The Tide source in Lagos, as Maritime activities closed on Friday.
He added that adequate transport corridors (rail, road and pipelines) should be put in place to serve the proposed port.
The chairman said that this would save port operators the agony of traffic bottlenecks encountered along the access roads to the Tin-Can Island and Apapa ports.
The PCC chief said that the problem at the Tin Can Island port was due to the fact that the transport corridors to the port had become inadequate to handle traffic.
‘When you now build a port in Lekki, you must be thinking of how you empty the traffic that the port would generate. “Will it join the existing level of traffic? ‘‘ Folarin asked.
The PCC chairman further suggested that there should be 11 lanes of dual carriageway; starting from the proposed port and creating a Fourth Mainland Bridge which would empty the traffic through Lagos metropolis.
The Tide gathered that the Lekki Deep Seaport is a 41-month project, expected to be inaugurated in 2019.
When completed, the port could handle container vessels of up to 10,000 Twenty Foot Equivalent (TEUs) with an annual cargo throughput (imports and exports) capacity of 1.5 million tones.
The project, which is expected to cost 1.6 billion dollars, is being built on a tripartite arrangement.
The partners are: the Federal Government, represented by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) (20 per cent); Lagos State Government (18.5 per cent); and Tolaram Group of Singapore (61.85 per cent).
The port will also be equipped to handle 16.7 million tones of liquid cargo and 40 million tones of dry bulk cargo yearly.
Meanwhile, NPA indicated in its publication- ‘Shipping Position’ that 36 ships laden with petroleum products, food items and other commodities were being expected to arrive at Lagos ports from June 5 to June 21.
It said that 17 of the expected ships would sail in with containers while the remaining 19 ships would arrive with kerosene, diesel, general cargo, fresh fish, bulk fertiliser, steel products and bulk wheat.
The publication stated that eight other ships, laden with petrol, base oil and bulk rice had arrived the ports, waiting to discharge their contents.
Meanwhile, seven ships are in the ports discharging bulk wheat, crude palm oil, diesel, base oil and containers.
During the week under review, Women’s International Shipping and Trading Association (WISTA, Nigeria) said that port concession had in the last nine years improved cargo delivery services in Nigerian ports.
The President of the association, Mrs Jean Chiazor-Anishere, told newsmen that the development was in line with international best practices.
“In terms of infrastructure, our seaport are now of international standard but not ‘uhuru’ yet because the tracks have not been totally reactivated.
“For Lagos seaports, there has been a lot of improvement.
“The Nigeria Customs, in their wisdom, have introduced PAAR (Pre-Arrival Assessment Report) system and this is commendable and should be encouraged,’’ she said.
Chiazor-Anishere, however, urged the Federal Government to assist in decongesting the port access road which she hoped would increase turnaround time of vessels, if such step is done.
In the week under review, the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone “A“ of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) announced seizure of vehicles, poultry products, used clothes and general goods suspected to have been smuggled, valued at N65 million.
According to the Public Relations Officer of the Unit, Mr Uche Ejesieme, the Idiroko Axis, Monitoring Team of the command on Wednesday May 27, made the interception.
He said that the leader of the team, Deputy Comptroller Yahaya Usman, confirmed that his team had a stiff battle with the smugglers before they (smugglers) were eventually subdued.
“We intercepted vehicles, poultry products, 413 bales of used clothes and other general goods, suspected to have been smuggled through unapproved routes.
“We had mounted surveillance along some of the unapproved routes and I am very optimistic that the anti-smuggling strategies, being carefully articulated, will always yield the desired results’‘, he said.
“The team leader acknowledged the support of the Comptroller-General of Customs, Alhaji Dikko Abdulahi and his management team for remaining a clog in the activities of the smugglers.”