•Says devt hampering maritime safety
Bu Egena Sunday Ode
The Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) has decried incessant theft of buoys worth millions of naira, saying the ugly development has compounded the challenges of navigation safety and dissuading foreign cargo ships from plying Nigeria’s Eastern maritime corridor.
Major ports along the Eastern water ways are in Calabar, Port Harcourt, Onne, and Warri.
One unit of buoys, which serves as navigational route signs, cost between N12 million and N20 million, whereas no fewer than 25 of these maritime safety equipment have been stolen from Nigerians waters this year alone,
Managing Director of NPA, Mohammed Bello Koko has disclosed on Tuesday.
The NPA boss who featured at the weekly presidential media team briefing held at the Aso Rock Villa, said apart from the cost of the buoys, it is also costly to install and deploy the equipment in the waters.
He lamented that the absence of these buoys put ships at risk of sailing aground, the reason many foreign ship captains prefer to stay off parts of Nigerian waters, which is consequently affecting government revenues at the affected ports.
He said as part of measures to stop the ugly trend, the Authority had been engaging with the locals and their leaders in the areas and communities where the theft occur to make them understand how their local economy is also being negatively affected by the incidents.
These buoys stolen by the vandals are often turned into scraps, he stated.
He said some of these buoys “have solar panels and sensors; and there is a beacon light there that flashes at night. So the first thing they do is to vandalize that sensor.
“And then you just have iron that has no light, and they can just you drag it off without the sensors.
“We can monitor it if it is not disconnected. Atimes we send in our boats to go round scouting for it. And to also be fair to the communities. We have had some instances where the buoys were naturally taken away by nature, they went adrift, they ended up on the shore of some communities.
“And to be fair to them, they have actually called us a couple of times to tell us that there’s a buoys that has gone adrift and it is in our community. And we thank them for that.
“We believe probably the communities do not even know the individuals that are involved in these activities. So we are monitoring the buoys. And that’s how we got to know how many are stolen any day it’s stolen.
“Because the captains are also taking vessels in and out of the water channels, they will naturally know when they can t find the beacons on the buoys, meaning that something is missing, and they normally report it.”
Nonetheless, the NPA boss said efforts have not been spared to make the Eastern maritime corridor viable for investors.
To this end, Calabar and Onne Ports are now ISO-certified and have seen tremendous increase in traffic, not just imports but also exports, with Onne becoming the fastest-growing port in Nigeria today, he said.
“In terms of percentage input, Onne has done 11,800 metric tons half of this year. We are seeing that the increase in percentage is high, probably because it’s easier to do business in Onne now.
“And because we have deployed more equipment in Onne, more personnel, we have paid attention to ensure that we made the port more competitive. In terms of export also, there’s an export processing terminal within Onne itself,’ Koko noted.
