The Federal government has completed the concession of the Onitsha River Port in Anambra State.
The Managing Director of National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), Mr. George Moghalu, disclosed this to journalists after a meeting with President Muhammad Buhari at the State House, Abuja, on Thursday.
He said the Federal government has rolled out plans for concessioning other sea/river ports in the country.
Moghalu said: “For Onitsha river port, we have successfully concessioned and handed over to Universal Elysium. It is a company that is partnering with the port of Antwerp in Belgium for the next 30 years.
“Now, because of limited resources and to reduce pressure on the government, we opened up the discussion with other interested organisations, unsolicited proposals have come for the concession of Baro, for the concession of Oguta and Lokoja — though still under construction.
“So, we are discussing it with them. The advantage here is that it will reduce pressure on the government; these people own this port, complete the port, put the port to use, and pay a royalty to the government. So, it has a lot of advantages. We are working conscientiously on that.
“Before I came to office, Oguta River Port was not on the budget for quite a while, but we eventually brought it back to the budget.
“As we speak, we have finished fencing the Oguta River Port. And we are doing little by little, depending on resources available to put in place some basic infrastructure required for a port to operate.
“Same is applicable to Lokoja. So, we are taking it from two perspectives- completing the building by government and concession or concession it so that the new concessionaire can complete the ports and put it to effective use.”