THE FRONTLINES

WITH JOSEPH USHIGIALE

connected politicians and big business owners who are milking the economy dry from their punitive actions.

In order to point the way forward by comparing port reforms in other climes to what obtains in the country, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) in its recent report titled ‘Cost of Maritime Ports Challenges in Nigeria’ acknowledged that the Netherland Port in Rotterdam, the largest port in Europe, also faced serious congestion in the port.

However, as part of reforms to decongest the port, the Port Authority allocated different terminals to the ships arriving based on their size and number of containers carried. This helped to free up main terminals for the vessels with high capacity; deployed efficient cranes to unload vessels with high capacity.

This made the processes associated with unloading of containers faster; expanded use of inland port facilities; riding on an efficient rail system and water tracks. This meant that containers meant for inland shipping were bundled at one location i.e. Uniport Terminal in the Waalhaven area. This allowed for the other terminals to be free for seagoing vessels.

Citing another example of Singapore as the shipping hub in Asia and at a time when there were congestions and other issues in the port, the country created a Research and Development Unit called The Maritime Innovation and Technology (MINT) with massive investment, about 150 million dollars was invested in the unit.

It noted that the Singapore straits are monitored by the Maritime Port Authority’s (MPA) port operations control centre, using Vessel Traffic Information System (VTIS) which has the capacity of handling up to 10,000 tracks at any one time. Annually, more than 130,000 ships call at Singapore with at least 1,000 vessels in the port at any one time. Every 2-3 minutes, a ship arrives or leaves Singapore. The report pointed out that although Singapore does not produce any oil, it is the top ship refuelling port in the world. In 2015, more than 45 million tonnes of bunkers were lifted in Singapore. Today there are more than 5,000 maritime establishments contributing about 7% to Singapore’s GDP, and employing more than 170,000 personnel.