By Adedapo Adesanya
With the recent wave of complaints about the absence of channel management outfit for maintenance dredging of Warri port and the shallow channel of the port caused by the pipelines belonging to Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) the Corporation’s management has constituted a committee to find lasting solutions to the problem.
This coincides with the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) which has also commenced the process of establishing a management outfit for the maintenance dredging of Warri port in line with the standards at the Lagos and Bonny ports.
Following the contract awarded by NPA last year for the dredging of the port-channel in Warri was hindered by pipelines of the NNPC which made it impossible to for the dredgers to dredge the channel beyond the depth of seven metres.
According to the General Manager, Corporate and Strategic Communication of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Adams Jato, revealed that NPA has commenced the procurement procedure for the establishment of the channel management outfit for Warri port.
He noted that the channel management outfits for Lagos and Bonny was met on the ground by the present management and stressed that the management is doing everything within its powers to increase utilisation of the Eastern ports.
“You know we met the channel management outfit for Lagos and Bonny on the ground. What we are doing now is that we just commenced the procurement process. You know the issue of this NNPC pipeline is also a problem; we are looking at the issue of how we are going to deal with the pipeline. Because of that, we cannot carry out a proper dredging of the channel.
“They have constituted a committee to see how they can get around it. The committee is set up by NNPC as a concerned stakeholder to look at the issue of the pipeline.” He concluded.
Dipo Olowookere