The Minister of State for Transportation, Sen. Gbemisola Saraki has urged the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), to ensure constant maintenance of waterways to achieve the required draft in maritime business.
Saraki, who spoke at a launch in Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital at the weekend observed that Nigeria’s stake in Maritime trade, is high, but the right environment must be created and maintained.
Speaking through the Managing Director (MD) NIWA, Dr. George Moghalu, the Minister said: “A country blessed with more than 10,000 Kilometres of inland waterways is certainly a nation with great maritime potentials if such natural environments are properly harnessed.
“Inland waterways are verifiably the cheapest and safest means of transportation and also play a critical role in multimodal transportation.
“It is therefore compelling that the waterways must be dredged to achieve the required draft, adequate surveys, mapping and charting with marker bouys with signages put in place, and every necessary steps taken to in ensure safe navigation.
‘”It is only in such a state of internal infrastructural development that the much needed investment can be attracted.
“This is one of the reasons I have directed three years ago that NIWA ensures regular in-house maintenance, dredging of the waterways, it is therefore gratifying g to note that some of the vessels we are commissioning today, the tug boat and the House boat are part of the dredging equipment necessary for a smooth dredging operation.”
NIWA at the event launched a dredger badge, tug boats, patrol boats and sea ambulances to enhance security, safety and business on the waterways.
The vessels were fabricated locally. The former federal lawmaker lauded NIWA for the feat and appealed to them to collaborate with Nigerian Maritime Administration, Safety Agency (NIMASA) to safety on inland waterways.
Speaking with Journalists at the event, Dr. Moghalu expressed the hope that the country’s water transportation business would soon develop, hinting that discussions are ongoing with those intending to go into ferrying transportation, adding that some of them have even began to indicate interests in the routes to operate when the business finally kicks off.
He said, “in addition to the vessels commissioned, NIWA was exploring the Public Private Partnership (PPP) financing model to also build commercial vessels to boost water transportation.
“We are already talking with some organizations that are interested in doing transport, ferrying movements using pontoons, and our discussions with them are very encouraging.
“We all believe very strongly that Inland Waterway transportation is the way to go, it has a lot of potentials which people need to explore, presently we are renovating some broken down ferries I inherited here, to get them back to work, as we speak now, some of them are already on water working. “However, my main emphasis is getting the Private sector to key into the vision and I can assure you that the response we are receiving are quiet encouraging.
“One of the groups we are talking with has picked to manage Oron/Calabar route, another has picked Agenegbode/ Iddah route, yet another group has picked interest in operating Onitsha/Asaba route, especially this festive seasons.”
