Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora, the Managing Director of National Inland Waterways Authority, has directed the contractor handling equipment installation at the Baro Port in Rivers State to immediately move to the site.
The order was conveyed on Wednesday in Lagos via a statement signed by NIWA’s General Manager of Corporate Affairs, Fadile Eyitayo.
The statement quoted Mamora as giving the directive during a recent visit to the port.
It said Mamora assured the contractor that the Authority would reconstruct the bad portions of the road leading to Baro Port within two weeks so as to facilitate the movement of equipment and personnel.
Mamora said: “The state of some of the facilities at the port is appalling and the facilities need urgent facelift to enable them to be at par with other works that will soon be put in place there.
“For instance, the administrative block, the water treatment plant, the generator house and the security post need urgent repairs; the contractor should move back to site to repair the structures.”
Responding, Opeyemi Olabanji of First Index Project Services Limited, the contractor handling the project, said flood and the bad road in the area had contributed to the delay of the work.
Olabanji, however, assured Mamora of the firm’s readiness to start equipment installation at the port as soon as the road was repaired.
