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PERSPECTIVE
A dredger
Increasing Shipping Activities to the Delta Ports Victor Akhidenor
P
orts don’t just thrive. Their productivity is a function of a combination of factors including but not limited to harbour and waterway approaches, port and terminal design, construction, operation and management, and ship traffic attraction. In rating the performance of a port, given that aforesaid factors are in place, the key indices will then look at the sizes of ships that patronize the port and their level of sophistication; the turnaround time of the ships whilst at berths; the volume of cargo handled and the speed of handling; the dwell time of cargo at the port terminals; the safety of cargo, and cargo theft prevention. Each of these KPIs is an enabler of the activities that make a port to thrive. Since a port is a service sector almost entirely dependent on the demand and supply of world trade, every modern port in this age of globalization and privatization strives to measure up with or beat the competition by having its own captive cargo and retaining its customers for as long as possible. A port authority and its operators are therefore required to understand the reasons and mechanisms of trade, and how their own ports can benefit or lose from changes in world seaborne trade, and the variations in the patterns of maritime and intermodal
transportation. In this context, the strategic siting of the Delta Ports of Warri, Sapele, Burutu and Koko is most revealing. This group of ports provide about the shortest routes for cargo round trips to catchment states of Anambra, Imo, Enugu, Delta, Edo, Kogi, Ondo, and Benue, when compared with other operational ports in Nigeria. At the present time that the government of the day is working assiduously at growing Nigeria’s non-oil exports, the proximity of the Delta Ports to the catchment states can serve as an aid to freight logistics and distribution planning. The east-west road’s arterial connection through primary and secondary lateral roads to the named states can engender quick turn-around time for trucks to and fro the ports. To increase shipping activities to the Delta Ports calls for no rocket science. All other things being equal, convention has shown that a “safe port� is the necessary if not sufficient condition which ships hold paramount before venturing into any port, regardless of the level of sophistication of the port’s terra firma of infrastructure, superstructure and equipment for handling cargoes. Safe port in charter parties refers to the waterway approaches to a port harbour that is free of obstruction, installed with the requisite navigational aids, and flushed with water sufficient enough to keep vessels afloat at berth. The major waterway approach to the Delta
Ports – the Escravos Channel – having become silted for nearly two decades, has inadvertently made every one of the Delta Ports become “unsafe� for large deep-sea ocean-going vessels, leaving the ports patronage to lighter offshore supply vessels, coastal tankers, fishing trawlers and passenger boats that ply the Tropical West Africa (TWA) maritime routes: a case of gross underutilization of otherwise productive national economic assets. This sad turn of events has no doubt decimated the fortunes of the Delta Ports over the years. It is thence cheering news for maritime industry watchers and stakeholders to learn that life is being breathed back to the Delta Ports via dredging of the Escravos channel and rehabilitation of its breakwater. The company that has been saddled with the responsibility of accomplishing the dredging part is Dredging International Services Nigeria Ltd (DISN), a firm renown globally for its technical expertise as a provider of marine and waterway solutions. DISN for many years has been carrying out similar and much more complex port and harbour projects all over the world . Once the Escravos Channel is dredged, a ‘safe port’ status for all the Delta Ports can be guaranteed to the extent that the ‘NAABSA Clause’ in charter parties drawn for vessel voyages to the ports will no longer be contentious. NAABSA is abbreviation for “Not always afloat but safely
aground� – a clause that is incorporated into the contract for hiring of a ship (charter party) in order to accept calling at ports where extreme tidal variations affect water depths and make it inevitable for the vessel’s keel to rest at the bottom of the river and touching mud without damage to the keel during loading/discharging operation. For a ship owner to take the risk of his vessel plying a port with such feature, he must have reassurance through his port agent, the charterer, the pilots or the port authority that the port and its channel approaches are not just being constantly dredged and maintained but cleared of wrecks and other debilitating obstructions to his ship. It is clearly a foregone conclusion that once ship traffic of different vessel and cargo types to the Delta Ports increases, shipping activities will skyrocket. Considering that ports are an important node in the global logistics and supply chain. Ports integrate and optimize different functions and processes for the purpose of overall cost reduction and customer satisfaction. In this connection, the Delta Ports with their strategic location will become logistics and distribution centres that optimize the movement of goods and services within the entire transport and logistics chain of their catchment region-states and provide an opportunity to add immense value to the local economies of this regions.
COUNTING THE GAINS OF INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVT IN OSUN training for all the workers. Besides empowering us financially, SAMMYA is also exposing us to skills in our various areas that are very new to many of us. The number of youths from Osun state that have been employed into various departments and sections of the company since the work began on the road is well over 500�.
Corroborating views of
Adegboyega on empowerment, but on a general note, a construction materials supplier based in Osogbo, Francis Fadoyin commended SAMMYA for sourcing construction materials from with in the state. Fadoyin said business of many construction materials dealers have improved greatly since SAMMYA commenced work in the state capital. “True to the promise of the chairman of the company, when the contract was awarded that, construction materials for the project would be sourced locally; the workers are actually sourcing materials from people dealing in the materials in the state. We can only hope this will be sustained and other contractors working on projects within the state will emulate SAMMYA and buy materials from people dealing in them from the state�.
Counting the Gains
While counting the gains of Osun massive investment in infrastructural development vis-a-viz the construction of Osogbo-Ila Odo-Kwara Boundary road, a labour leader in the state, Comrade Kazeem Oladepo challenged administrators in the country to borrow a leaf, not only from the model adopted to finance the project, but also the sheer dedication to duties which he said the contractor has shown in making sure that the work is done to specifications. Speaking further, the employee of state Ministry of Health, added that the construction of the road has demonstrated the readiness of government to place the Osun in the league of developed states and the choice of SAMMYA, a pointer to the resolve of Aregbesola’s administration to permanently etch his name in the minds of people in the state as a governor that lift the state to enviable heights in terms of infrastructural development. A traditional ruler, Oba Rauf Adedeji, the Akinrun of Ikirun, the headquarters of Ifelodun local government area of Osun state, one of the towns through which the road transverses, commended both state government and SAMMYA Construction Limited for making the project a good reference point for the
development-driven administrators in the country. For the monarch, the dream to transform the state’s infrastructural amenities as conceived by the then governor was actually being given a life by the contractor handling the project, charging all those involved in the project to ensure that the same vigor with which they commenced the work with is retained throughout the duration of the project. In his own reaction, the founder of Sword of Spirit Ministry, Eweta, Pastor Israel Wemimo said the major gain the state is recording through the ongoing Osogbo-Kwara Boundary project is in the area of empowerment. He declared that those youths in Ikirun and adjoining communities, who could not be absorbed by the contracting firm handling the work at the moment, eagerly awaits when the contractor will shift full attention to the part of the project that traverses the community. Similar to the view expressed by this clergy man is the one held by Chief Tadese Esuleke of Oloba Compound, Osogbo, who was of the opinion that, besides giving the state a facelift, employment opportunities created through the project and the perceived readiness of the contractor, who he said was not planning to use and dump those
employed, but in addition, empower them by given them training in specific vocations, is simply the continuation of youth empowerment efforts of the previous government. He said: “Many youths in the state, who could not get opportunity in OYES are beginning to turn their attention to SAMMYA, the contractor working on Osogbo-Kwara Boundary road. Honestly, this work is assisting in mopping our streets of these hitherto idle young men. You can call it an indirect way by government and its partner the contractor to empower young ones." Speaking on behalf of students’ movement in the state, a former Osun State Chairman of the Joint Campus Committee (JCC) of National Association Nigerian Students (NANS), Comrade Bosede Safety said: “People are saying youth empowerment is one of the gains recorded by the state through the project of Osogbo-Kwara Boundary road but beyond that fact, I think the preservation of lives and properties of the people that will use that road. The rate of accident on that road before this construction work is relatively high. Lives and properties have been lost and that will have to stop now with the expansion and reconstruction work going on."