After a tour of the West African Container Terminal, Brawal Terminal and Intels at Onne Port in Rivers State last week, delegates of the 13th Nigerian dredging summit and exhibition called for better training of indigenous dredge masters, deckhands and associated skills to improve local capacity in the execution of public and private sector dredging contracts in the country.
A communique circulated after the event by Dr. Edmund Chilaka, the event’s coordinator, also pointed out that serious air pollution was evidenced around the Alesa Eleme petrochemical and fertilizer industrial areas and called on the Federal Ministry of Environment to investigate the reports and ensure that other regulatory agencies were carried along in the approval of environmental impact assessment (EIA) reports to ensure holistic monitoring and enforcement of safety laws and standards.
Papers and presentations were made by experts from various companies and government establishments in the dredging, sand mining, marine, maritime and oil and gas sub sectors in line with the event theme, “The Management of Ports, Dams, the Environment and Sand Mining in a Recovering Dredging Market.”
Some of the insightful papers include “River and Port Development: Threats to Coastal Infrastructure and the Environment” by Professor Abam T. Kingdom of the River State University, “The London Dumping Protocols and other Regulations Guiding Port State Control: NIMASA’s Implementation Activities” by Mr. McDennis Igbo of NIMASA, and “Dredging Activities Undertaken by the Nigerian Ports Authority and its Joint Ventures, BCC and LCM” presented on behalf of the Assistant General Manager of NPA’s Hydrography Department by Surveyor Ade Faturoti.
The Director of Julong Technology in Nigeria, Ubong Essien informed the gathering of a new project by the company which has established two bases in Nigeria for the production of dredgers of all sizes and other watercrafts as well as the repair and maintenance of faulty dredging machines and accessories.
A post-event press release thanked sponsors and corporate participants such as NPA, NIMASA, Nigerian Westminster Dredging and Marine, CARES, Julong Dredgers, Plantgeria Nigeria Ltd, NIWA, LASEPA and the Federal Ministry of Environment for their steady support for the events over the years.
The Summit also called for a conference to be urgently convoked for MDAs involved in the regulation of dredging, sand-mining and maritime activities to work on the resolution or harmonization of conflicting roles and inter-agency disputes.
