Amaechi wants terminal operators to participate in reorganisation of ports

To ensure efficiency at the Apapa ports, Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi has vowed to ensure terminal operators collaborate with the Federal Government in the planned reorganisation and reconstruction of the seaport.

Amaechi, while citing the drastic change he noticed at the port when he and President Muhammadu Buhari visited, said he noticed that the major problem inhibiting operations at the port is inefficiency. So he called on terminal operators to work with the government in this regard.

Speaking during a television programme, the minister said: “I was in the train with the president on that day and noticed that everything had disappeared, even inside the port that looked like a market place was very well organized, no persons were found loitering about, no trucks.

“What it shows is that the problem of the seaport is the problem of efficiency. If they had the capacity in just one night, because I was there the previous evening, and when I came back in the morning, everything had disappeared, If that can happen in one night, it means that the problem is management, nothing else. Do we need to wait for the president to come before we can be efficient?” Amaechi queried.

The minister said he had met with the terminal operators, and told them that they have to contribute to the reconstruction of the Apapa seaport.

“We must rebuild the Apapa seaport, taking into cognizance all the issues that we are seeing now that is frustrating the port among others, like where do you park the trucks and how many trucks are coming into the seaport at what point in time?” he queried.