Onne, Calabar ports ISO certified — NPA

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) says the habours departments of Onne and Calabar ports have secured the International Standard Organisation(ISO) certification.

Managing Director of NPA, Mohammed Koko, disclosed on Tuesday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, while featuring in the 55th session of State House Briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team.

Koko said that such certification would make ports operations more efficient, adding that efforts were underway to ensure that other ports were certified

The NPA boss said that the authority had come up with strategic initiatives–first of which was aggressive ports infrastructure renewal and modernisation.

“And of course, there would be government funding for that; private sector funding is also being considered; or a hybrid—in such a way that government brings some of the funds and then private sector or multi-lateral agencies bring some.

“And then, we realise the need for automation; automation brings efficiency; it reduces cost; it plugs the leakages.

“It is one the things we are working on, and we are working with multi-lateral international donor agencies, the private sector; also, hybrid funding will be used for that.”

He said that ISO certification meant that the ports would be more competitive.

“We decided to start ISO certification for our ports and I am happy to announce that the habours departments of two of our ports have been ISO certified; that is Onne Port and Calabar Port.

“Warri will soon be on; and then the other ports also will soon be certified.

“We believe in the certification of these port operations, our main core function is in the maritime and habours department; so, if we are able to get ISO certification for that, it makes our ports more competitive, processes easier and be more transparent.”

Koko said that the authority also came up with up with an initiative of export promotion in order to support the Federal Government’s initiative on diversification of the economy and encourage exports.

He said that all terminal operators were mandated to have warehouses for sorting out and processing of exports.

The managing director said that private sector was also brought in to be involved in export processing.

“And in terms of muti-modalism, formerly over 95 per cent of all cargo was being moved by road; and that’s not efficient; it is expensive; the road can’t carry it.

“And we have worked with Nigerian Railway Corporation under the directive of the Federal Ministry of Transportation to see that the train services are deployed to the ports, but we also came up the barge services,” he said.