The Nigerian Ports Authority announced that it had obtained a $700m loan from Citibank for the rehabilitation of the Apapa and Tincan Island Ports in Lagos.
This disclosure was made in a statement on Wednesday by the Managing Director of NPA, Mr. Mohammed Bello-Koko, during a panel session at the 43rd Annual Council Meeting of the Port Management Association of West and Central Africa, according to The Punch.
The loan would be funded by the UK Export Finance, an export credit agency.
The Managing Director of the NPA, Mohammed Bello-Koko on behalf of the Executive Management Team signed the Mandate Letter.
Bello-Koko said the mandate letter would be sent to the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Finance & Coordinating Minister, and the Debt Management Office for review and final approval.
According to the statement, the loan is to fully rehabilitate the Apapa and TinCan Island Port to accommodate modern cargo handling equipment and expand the port’s capacity.
In addition, He said NPA had perfected plans in ongoing discussions to modernize other ports of Calabar, Rivers, Onne, and the Escravos Breakwater and will soon reach a closure.
“In the last two years, NPA has realised the need to rehabilitate and reconstruct the ports all over the country. We have been having discussions with multilateral funding agencies that have sent various proposals that we have reviewed.
“What we did was to further the discussion with interested parties and we realised it better to separate the ports in Lagos from the ports in the east, and we are in discussion with other funding agencies to fund the construction of ports outside Lagos.
“Port efficiency is not about automation which we have already begun, it’s also about the physical infrastructure, which must be in place and that’s why we are automating. Automation will naturally bring efficiency, increase revenue, and plug leakages,” Bello-Koko said.
The NPA had in said 2023, it would launch a huge $1.1bn ports rehabilitation programme in the first quarter of 2024.
