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By Ebube Egbufor
The Business and Maritime Writers Association of Nigeria (BUMWAN) has commended APM Terminals’ West Africa Container Terminal (WACT) Onne for its huge investment at the Onne Port Complex, Rivers State, and for developing the largest container terminal to service the Eastern Nigerian market.
President of BUMWAN, Mr. Peter Ihejirika, gave the commendation last Thursday when he led the executive members of the association on a courtesy call to WACT.
Mr. Ihejirika noted that WACT, Onne was the first Greenfield terminal operator in Nigeria which has gone into the annals of history as a successful venture east of the Niger, outside Lagos, that can handle many containers in a day and reduce ship turnaround time.
He said WACT has surpassed all expectations in the area of Infrastructural development, corporate social responsibility, job creation (whereby about 2,950 direct and indirect job opportunities have been provided in Nigeria) revenue generation as well as robust business relationship with stakeholders and the host community.
According to the BUMWAN president, the determination of WACT to develop the terminal is not in doubt with the injection of additional 100 million dollars in 2020 into the company which has culminated in the acquisition of state of the art cargo handling equipment such as five mobile harbour cranes, 20 rubber tyred gantry cranes, reach stackers, terminal trucks and trailers and empty container handlers.
“We are also aware that the upgrade also included deployment of reefer racks with a 600 plug-capacity, expansion of current yard, new workshop and a new terminal gate complex, he noted, stressing that all the above achievements were geared towards increased revenue generation for the Federal Government.
Mr. Ihejirika pointed out that the conducive business environment created by WACT at Onne Ports Complex has tremendously helped the Customs command there in setting a milestone in revenue generation, disclosing that the command recently posted an impressive revenue generation of over N128.3 billion from January to September, 2021.
He also commended WACT for hosting the largest container ship that has ever called at any Nigerian port, named Maersk Stadelhom, with length over all of 300 metres and beam of 48.2 metres and has capacity to carry about 10,000 TEU. The ship, he said, successfully berthed on August 15, 2020 at Berth 8 and even overlapped to Berth 9 because of its size.
While asking WACT to sustain its robust relationship with the media, he assured the management of more robust coverage of its activities.
Responding, the general manager, Government and Public Relations of WACT, Mr. Ogbuji Innocent, assured that the company would not rest on its laurels in sustaining its value adding services to the Nigerian economy.
He said WACT has impacted positively on its host communities through the granting of scholarships, creation of direct and indirect jobs, and development of social infrastructure.
In a presentation to the visiting journalists, the commercial manager of APMTerminals’ WACT, Mr. Noah Sheriff, appealed to consignees to take prompt delivery of their containers to reduce the dwell-time, which he said has risen to 35days. High container dwell-time, he said, hampers the efficiency of the terminal.
Sheriff said WACT’s ongoing additional investment of USD111 million shows the commitment of the parent company, APMTerminals, to Nigeria.
