Daily Times Nigeria Wednesday, September 9, 2015
19 Interview
Waterfront investments will rake in billions for government – Ibrahim, NIWA Boss This investment will not attract a kobo from government, it is going be on build, operate and transfer process. The only thing is that government will have a stake and that stake will generate billions of naira to the government.
Ibrahim
Danladi Ibrahim is the Acting Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (MD/CEO) of the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA). He has spent well over 17 years in the maritime sector. Recently he had an interactive session with the correspondent chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Kogi state council on how to reposition the sector through investment opportunities. Our correspondent IBRAHIM OBANSA brings excerpts of that interaction On his experience in the maritime industry I started as manager legal services and rose to become general manager legal services and company secretary before my recent appointment as the Managing Director of National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) in the month of June, 2015. However, having spent about 17 years in the public sector I can categorically say that I am an icon as far as inland water transportation is concerned. In this 17 years I have been a management staff I have been part of almost every decisions and the team that sought for solutions to challenges in the agency. His vision for the sector Having said this, my vision for the inland waterways transportation in Nigeria is to unlock the economic potentials of the northern states particularly now that the federal government is moving away from the oil sector to agriculture and solid minerals as alternative sources of revenue.
It is only through inland waterways development system that government can make the two sectors successful because it is about transportation from the hinterland to sea port and it is through shipment which is via inland water ways. To buttress this point the management of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) have just announced the revocation of all contracts for the supply of crude oil to the refineries in the country. That is Warri, Kaduna and Port Harcourt and the only option they were thinking, is the marine transportation. That is to say that crude oil will now be transported on our waterways to Warri, Kaduna and Port Harcourt refineries and if you are going to Kaduna refinery you must pass through river Niger and river Kaduna. How navigable are the northern rivers? It is true that the North is landlocked, but apart from some parts of Kano and Katsina, every state in the North can be assessed by water. Even the crude
oil that has been discovered in the Lake Chad basin can also be transported by water. It is a matter of linking Chad with river Benue. If the Inland waterways can be developed, every part of the north can be assessed by water. This is one of our visions and it takes very little to achieve. What is required here is the political will of the government through finances and the agency providing adequate manpower to achieve the desired vision. Maintenance of the waterways by NIWA We can maintain waterways through two means. First, it can be maintained through Public Private Partnership (PPP) by concessioning it to the private sectors. All the infrastructure can as well be leased out to private sectors, government can also develop and concession. It can as well be purely private sector initiative and at the same time it can be developed by government. Concession here means government putting its money into developing the waterways and giving it to private sector to operate. So with the right legal framework government can achieve the feat. Having said that, the other areas are the infrastructure which is the port, the jetties and the dock yards. This can also be developed through the same means mentioned earlier. For instance we are developing five ports which is fully funded by the government, by the time the ports are completed it will be
NEPC moves to reduce dependence on oil revenue
concessioned. We have completed the Onitsha port and in the process of concessioning them. Secondly, another aspect of the inland waterways which has been neglected by government for long is the landed asset on our water front. The waterfront is a lucrative asset. All over the world waterfronts are developed into huge investmenst and luckily for us in Nigeria we have this land on our waterways which can be found in Lagos, Warri, Onitsha and Asaba. What we are considering to do now is to develop all these land into mega structures just like what exist in developed world like Dubai, America and China. This is what we intend to do and it will yield a lot of billions of naira to government. This investment will not attract a kobo from government, it is going be on build, operate and transfer process. The only thing is that government will have a stake and that stake will generate billions of naira to the government. On how to overcome challenges of funding. Underfunding have been our major problem in his agency , but the good news is that we have our bill at the National Assembly called National Inland Authority Bill and as soon as that bill is amended and passed into law the issue of underfunding will be a thing of the past because we have hope in the bill. Contribution by major stakeholders are also needed. We are
coming with a second thought that why can’t we have what America have or what America called Inland Waterways Trust Fund? in America the inland waterways is funded through a trust fund. The trust fund comes from contributions made by the major stakeholders. So all infrastructure development on waterways are funded from this trust fund and lucky enough for us in Nigeria we have a very large pool of stakeholders that is; the oil companies which operates within our waterways. 70-80 per cent of oil exploration in the Niger Delta are carried out in the water. All dams that generate electricity in this country are right inside our waterways, yet we have never gotten a kobo from National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) before it was privatized. Even at that, they are now dealing with generating, distributing and transmitting and yet we are not getting anything from the companies. All these companies are stakeholders because all their earnings are from the activities taking place in the waterways. There are other several dredging companies operating in Niger-Delta and Lagos. We have large pool of stakeholders, our thinking is that as soon as we have a legal frame work that will compel these stakeholders to contribute into the trust fund, the issue of finances will be a thing of the past, and once the issue of finance is solved, other challenges are secondary and can easily be solved.
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assured the exporters and NEPC of abiding by the “1Digit Interest Rate” to encourage people assess bank loans for the exporting business. But, the participants mostly youths at the forum called on the government and NEPC to improve on its policy drive on agriculture for large production in order to limit the intervention on exportation.
international market. Also, representatives of the Nigeria Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Bank of Industry (BoI), Fidelity, Access, and Guaranty Trust Banks gave their support for the federal government initiative with promised to improve on their relationship with the exporters. The financial institutions also