The Nigeria Shippers Council (NSC) has estimated that the Lekki Deep seaport will generate at least 180,000 jobs for Nigerians when operational.
NSC Executive Secretary Hassan Bello made this known recently while speaking on the challenges confronting ports operations.
Bello noted that to promote intra and inter ports competition, the Lekki Deep sea port will be operational in 2021 alongside the Ibom Deep Sea Port.
“These are very important contributions of government through public private partnerships. So, we are looking forward to their full operation, even as the shippers’ council is mindful of the type of ports because there are conventional and modern ports.”
He further stressed that the Deep Seaport was a project undertaken under a public-private partnership, while commending the Federal government for their commitment to the actualisation of the project which is expected to commence operation by next year.
While commenting on the mistakes made by the Apapa and Tin Can Ports, Hassan said, “we cannot make the mistake of Apapa and Tin Can, that is the advantage of deep sea port to take in larger ships hence there’s reduction in cost of containers.”
“Cargoes should be able to leave the ports as soon as they arrive in order to make things easy. The government, terminal owners and shipping companies will make more money when it happens like this.”
He noted that there are plans to create multi-modal access as they are in talks with the Federal Ministry of Transportation, hence it is now in the budget to connect the Lekki port with rail. “We must also have modern electronic traffic management too.”
He added that the Lekki port should be a transit port and situations where containers are stacked in the ports should be avoided.
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