PORT CONGESTION: Npa proposes 25-year port development plan …As 15 coys indicate interests

The Nigerian Ports Authourity (NPA) has reiterated that the implementation of a comprehensive master plan for the nation’s seaports is the panacea for port congestion.
To achieve this, 15 companies have submitted proposal for expression of interest for the provision of consultancy services for the development of national Port Master Plan. Three of the companies are foreign base, namely: Royal Haskoning of Netherlands, CARES Consultant of UK and CPCS Company of Canada. The rest are indigenous.
According to the managing director, NPA, Mallam Abdusallam Mohammed, the immediate evolution of a comprehensive port development master plan, which would improve the capacity of the nation’s seaports, as envisaged in the proposed 25-year Port Development Master Plan for the Nigerian Ports Authority, provides the most certain and permanent solution to  port congestion.
Stressing the relevance of the proposed 25-year Port  Development Plan to the future development of the nation’s seaport, the Managing Director reiterated that the plan would make port development strategic and anticipatory of challenges.
Confirming the plan at a forum with an assembly of port system stakeholders recently, the managing director stressed that if port development had been strategic in the past, the nation could not have been facing the challenge of congestion, it was currently confronted with.
“The long time solution is in having the master plan which we are working on now.  We feel that if port development is strategic we could not have been facing the challenges we are facing now.  Through the plan we can project into the future and make plans to anticipate challenges”, he explained.