10 November 2016, Calabar – The Chairman, Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, Mr. Emmanuel Adesoye, says the Federal Government plans to dredge the Calabar port soon to enable large vessels to berth.
He made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Calabar on Wednesday.
“We have seen most of these facilities. They are excellent facilities. They are opportunities waiting to be tapped. We know that these are areas that can really help Nigeria in terms of income, especially foreign currencies, if properly developed.
“There are also challenges. For example, the one we see is the draft situation in this area; it’s a little bit shallow; we need to do a lot of dredging. We need to make it accessible for big ships that can come here and do business with us. So, these are the kinds of the challenges we need to resolve as we go on in this business.”
He said, “One of the greatest incentives is to make sure that the draft line is okay for ships to come in here. That is the greatest because there are business people that are willing to trade with us. We want to trade with the others and we have to do a lot of information sharing so that people will now know that this place is ready for ships to come on board.’’
The NPA chair stressed the need to go back to the drawing board as quickly as possible to make the Calabar port more viable economically.
- Punch
