House Committee Tasks FG to Complete Lokoja Port, Ignite Waterways Transportation

Ibrahim Oyewale in Lokoja

The House of Representatives Committee on the Inland Waterways  has tasked the federal government on the need to complete the moribund Lokoja Port in view of the strategic importance to ignite activities of the waterways transportation in the country .

The Chairman of the House Committee on Waterways, Mr. Ojema Ojotu, made the call while speaking during the visit to the site of Lokoja Port which has not seen the light of the day in past ten years, urging the contractor to live up to expectation or else the contract be revoked now.

His words: “We are here at the site of Lokoja port and we have discovered that the project has been lying low for number of years and we are saying  that the government as mater of priority to give necessary attention to this project considering the fact that the project is located at very strategic place in this country.

“This project  (the port) and  proximity to Abuja, connected to Warri  and so many ports in the country  and now we are thinking of having alternative means of transportation other than roads, even air, to decongest the trafficking, to address  the issue of accidents and to have a very strategic and modern waterways  transportation system.

“We need to a workable , a stable and well advance port system .These are the reasons why the project is put in place here . However, this contact has been running in the past 9 years and this not in the interest of the government, it is not in the interest of Nigerians, it is not in the interest of NIWA, it is not the interest of the National Assembly.

“We are calling on the contractor handling this project to as matter of urgency to speed up the job. If he has any challenges, we are going to summon him to the National Assembly to engage him why the contract has been lingering for so long.

“If it is his fault, we shall call him to order and advocate for the revocation of the contract. If it is not his fault and if it is that of government we definitely lend our voices to government to release the immediate resources to complete the project on time. That is why we are here. We are saying that this system must work, under our watch, it must work.

“We are ready to do everything to ensure the system is working We can see some expensive machines have been brought to the site. From the look of things the work is not making head way.
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For the purposes of emphasis we have met with the management of NIWA and have told us their own side of the story , the contractor is not on ground, we need to hear also his own side of the story because you cannot barb a man while he is absent .

The Managing Director, National Inland Waterways, Mr. Bola Oyebamiji, lauded  the committee on the inland waterways for this visit .

He explained that “this is good for us, this is  what is call auditing visit, they have seen what we have done so far. They actually told us what is expected of us, especially with the budget of 2025 coming on board. The visit of the committee to this project is welcome idea”.

He noted that when he came on board, he picked up the contract file and discovered that there was inadequate funding of the project. 

His words: “The management had a meeting with the  contractor  three months ago and what we discovered and what we agreed was to structure  abridge finance for this contractor, that was the reasons why you see these equipment, we spoke with BOI so that the BOI can bridge the finance for him before the implementation of the disbursement of our budget, notwithstanding, the fund allocated to  this project is not adequate  .

“But with the visit of this committee I hope we will have robust funding and funding for this project in 2025 .This will aid the development and growth of this port. .

“This port is extremely strategic to the economic growth of this country. This port leads to Baro, Warri, even Onitsha so this a very strategic centre. So, if We have enough funding and the contractor is being enhanced definitely, we will finish this project in a quick manner.”