Nigeria FG to inaugurate Onitsha port in November

“The project was started in 2009.”

Onitsha River Port Project, currently under construction along the Niger river banks. Construction by Inter Bau. (Photo: Alessandro Scott)

The Minister of Transport, Idris Umar, has assured that the Onitsha port would be inaugurated in November.

Umar gave the assurance at the end of his inspection of port projects in Baro in Niger, Onitsha in Anambra and Oguta in Imo on Saturday.

The project for the rehabilitation of the Onitsha port complex was awarded to Inter Bau Construction Limited on December 12, 2009. The project, which was designed by Aim Consultants Limited, has a 12-month duration.

The minister, who described the project as 92 per cent completed, lauded the construction company, an indigenous firm, for a good job. He described the port as strategic and a hub in all business activities across the country.

Umar said its timely completion and inauguration for operation would make the country more commercially viable to both foreign and indigenous investors.

“In about six to eight weeks, we hope to invite President Goodluck Jonathan to commission the Onitsha river port while others will be due for commissioning in 2012,” he said.

“Onitsha is the hub of business activities across the country and, by all definitions, the port is strategic.”

Chairman of Inter Bau Construction Limited, Nathaniel Okechukwu, said everything that would make the port operational had been put in place.

He blamed the delay in the project’s timely completion on the federal government’s budget.

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Chidi Okoye 

-DailyTimes