IN
THE NEWS...
Ten years since the start of seaport reforms in
Nigeria:
Is NPA workforce still bloated?
The 2001 seaport reform programme
which gave birth to port concessionaires as private terminal operators
and produced a leaner Nigerian Ports Authority ... Now, with cargo operations
taken over by terminal operators, NPA staff in these departments have
not been effectively re-assigned. They still report to work daily. They
make all the essential motions of discharging responsibilities...the
workforce is top heavy: over 22 general managers, more than 50 assistant
general managers and a complement of the lower cadre staff ...Read
More.
Monitoring pollution
In Lagos waters: How LCM keeps the port channels navigable.
Danny Fuchs came to Nigeria a few years
ago to run Nigerian Ports Authority’s (NPA) joint venture, Lagos
Channel Management – a special purpose vehicle devised to add
vim to Nigeria’s quest for a reformed and modernized port industry
geared to move with the times. Today, Danny, as everybody calls him,
manages to see Nigeria through the eyes of Nigerians...In the first
ten months of this year, 3,099 ships called at the Lagos ports - a double-digit
percentage increase over the figures for 2010. Next, LCM is targeting
13.5 metres. .....Read
more
 Federal
Govt Queries Ministry of Transport over Calabar Port Dredging Contract.
Two critical projects in the maritime industry
have come under the sledgehammer of the Federal Government, which has
queried the supervisory Ministry of Transport over its handling of the
schemes, reports Nigeria Daily News. The projects are the dredging of
the Calabar Port Channel in Cross River State and the concessioning
of the Koko Port in Delta State. At the centre of the dredging contracts
are two firms, which had earlier abandoned the project but are seeking
its upward review from N8 billion to N30 billion...But the government,
in baring its fangs on the contract for the dredging of the Calabar
Port through the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP), refused to issue
it a certificate of no objection, which implied that it had been cancelled.
Read
more.
Special
focus on five years of years of private terminal concession in Nigerian
ports: Ro-Ro port under Fivestar Logistics Ltd management.
The port concession programme began effectively
in 2006 after the international competitive bidding which produced the
successful terminal operators now holding sway at most Nigerian seaports.
Foreign shipping lines like MOL and K line which left the country for
neighbouring ports have since returned to Nigerian ports while some
new container shipping lines are now calling Nigeria like CSAV, Nile
Dutch, UASC. This is another clear signal that change has happened to
the international perception of the situation of things at the ports.
Read more.
 Special
focus on five years of years of private terminal concession in Nigerian
ports...
"The dredging of the channel to the
port is just being carried out recently towards the fifth year anniversary
of the concession, this delay in carrying out the dredging has inhibited
berthing of some vessels in our terminal that have a depth of 10.5 meters
or deeper. In essence income that would have accrued to us have been
diverted to other terminals; it also hindered our competitiveness."
- Chief Musa Danjuma. Read
More.
 NPA
To Fast-track Trans-shipment; Starts Ship-To-Ship Transfer In selected
ports.
The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), will henceforth ensure that neighbouring
land-locked countries take delivery of their cargo with ease from Nigerian
seaports. In another development, NPA has announced that with effect
from July this year, ship-to-ship (STS) transfer of petroleum products
or any other cargo would only be allowed at designated points along
the nation’s waterways. Read more.
 Interview
of Capt Jon Jon, Terminal Manager of Fivestar Logistics Terminal Apapa,
as part of the special focus on Nigerian seaport reform and port concession.
"Half Of The Shipping Lines
Calling Lagos Now Did Not Do So In The Past Due To Reasons Of Insecurity,
Berthing And Operational Delays." - Capt Jon Jon. Read
More.
 5th
Nigerian Dredging Summit Calabar 2011: Delegates demand manpower development
and a credible association.
In one of the most stirring seminars,
Surveyor Geoff Nweke, ex-staff of NPA Calabar, presented the story of
the Calabar river dredging campaigns. Speaking to the accompaniment
of a Powerpoint presentation, he said that “…Calabar Port
is situated on the South Eastern tip of Nigeria but its approaches stretches
several kms into the sea. Its exact location on the Calabar River is
about 96km upstream from Calabar Fairway Buoy which is a few kms from
the Nigeria/Cameroon border..." Read
More.
 Lagos,
Ogun, A’Ibom to Get Four Deep Seaports
As part of the efforts to boost operations in the nation’s
seaports, the Federal Government plans the development of green fields
with the construction of four deep sea ports. The states where the seaports
will be developed include Lagos, which will get two seaports, Akwa Ibom
and Ogun. Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar, who disclosed this
in Abuja at a press briefing said that two deep seaports will be built
at Lekki and Badagry in Lagos. The other seaport will be constructed
at Ondo/Ogun, while the fourth will be at Ibaka in Akwa Ibom state.
Read more.
 Working
With The General: How Pier Luigi Carrodano's Stint
At
Nalcomet Group Paid Off - Part 2.
In our
last edition, Mr P. L. Carrodano, the Group Managing Director of the
Comet Group of Companies had taken up questions of how the companies
were brought into accreditation to the NIS-ISO system which culminated
in an award ceremony for six of the companies by the Standards Organisation
of Nigerian, SON, in a lavish ceremony at Sheraton Hotel and Towers
Abuja, Nigeria. He had also traced his origins of his interest in the
Nigerian maritime industry even while he was yet in his native Italy.
In this concluding segment of the interview, he takes up his coming
to Nigeria for the first time with his wife and the job assignments
of those early days right up to the time of joining the enterprises
of General T.Y. Danjuma. Read more.
Nigerian Maritime
News Headlines ...
 Cabotage
Vessel Financing Fund: Politicians want to me to favour them —NIMASA
boss
The Director-General of Nigerian Maritime Administration
and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Mr Patrick Akpobolokemi, has said that politicians
have been mounting pressure on his management to favour them in the
planned disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF). Disclosing
this recently in Lagos, the NIMASA boss said despite the pressure, he
has remained resolute because he does not want to be remembered as one
who disbursed monies meant for expanding the shipping base of the country
to people outside the profession as was the case with the Ship Acquisition
and Ship Building Fund (SASBF). According to him, “Politicians
see the fund as a bonus and I have resisted all manner of pressure to
disburse the funds so far”, Mr Akpobolokemi said. He was trying
to explain the reason for delay in disbursing it. Read
more.
International Dredging
Briefs
Oldest steam dredger at Gloucester
Docks to be repaired.
BBC News Online reports that the oldest working
stream dredger in Europe is to be repaired after an award of cash from
the UK's Heritage Lottery Fund. The Friends of Gloucester Waterways
has been given £43,300 to replace boiler tubes on Dredger SND
number 4, which is moored at Gloucester Docks. It was built in Holland
in 1925, and had been in operation as an attraction at Gloucester Waterways
Museum until earlier this year. Spokesman Chris Witts said it would
be a "day to celebrate" once mended. Read
more.
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