Inland Waterways Authority Seeks Private Sector Partnership For Oguta River Port Revival

In a determination expected to boost trade, industrialisation, and employment successful the South East , the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) has commenced reviving the long-abandoned Oguta River Port successful Imo State.

LEADERSHIP reports that the Oguta River Port task was designed to supply an alternate maritime outlet for the Southeast and nexus the portion to different parts of the state done the Orashi River, which connects to the Atlantic.

However, the task was abandoned aft years of neglect, inadequate funding, and shifting authorities priorities. Successive administrations had promised to revive the facility, but small advancement was made beyond preliminary construction.

Stakeholders accidental its revival is agelong overdue, particularly arsenic Nigeria seeks to diversify its system and trim its overdependence connected the congested Lagos ports.

However, speaking connected Monday, during a gathering with the Technical Team of the Orashi Special Energy Free Trade Zone, led by its Managing Director, Dr. Chioma Nwachukwu, astatine the agency’s Liaison Office successful Abuja, the Managing Director of NIWA, Bola Oyebamiji, disclosed described the Oguta River Port arsenic a strategical nationalist plus that is cardinal to unlocking the economical imaginable of the South East.

He emphasised that NIWA was unfastened to public-private partnerships (PPP) to guarantee the speedy revitalisation of the larboard facility.

“The Oguta River Port is cardinal to the economical improvement of the South East and holds immense imaginable for commercialized facilitation and determination integration. NIWA is consenting to collaborate with credible investors nether a PPP statement to bring this imaginativeness to reality,” helium stated.

In her remarks, Dr. Nwachukwu reaffirmed the readiness of the Orashi Special Energy Free Trade Zone to spouse with NIWA successful actualising the afloat imaginable of the port. According to her, the project, erstwhile revived, would pull overseas and section investments, spur concern activities, and make thousands of nonstop and indirect jobs.

With NIWA’s renewed committedness and the willingness of backstage partners to invest, hopes are precocious that the Oguta River Port task volition yet determination from decades of stalled promises to reality.