Bakassi Deep Seaport Gets Canada, Belgium Attention
Two foreign companies, Port of Antwerp International of Belgium and CPCS Transcom of Canada, Wednesday emerged Top bidders for the construction of Bakassi Deep Seaport located in Cross River state.
The bidding exercise which was streamed live due to travel bands occassioned by the novel Coronavirus took place at the conference room of the State Planning Commission, Calabar with the bidders participating through virtual zoom from their respective countries.
At the end of the rigorous bidding exercise as witnessed by the Calabar Chamber of Commerce and Industry, represented by Keneth Asim Ituah, Port of Antwerp International of Belgium and CPCS Transcom of Canada emerged winners.
In his remark, Dr. Francis Ntamu, Chairman Steering Committee for the Integrated Bakassi Deep seaport assured members of the public of prompt execution of the project as the public private partnership (PPP) which is an integral part of the process has addressed issues arising from abandonment and transition of government.
“The beauty of PPP is that it takes away the anxiety of whether or not the next administration will want to carry on with the project.
“Once there are shareholders and stakeholders, it means that the project is already in the market place and this eliminates uncertainty factors.This is what the PPP model seeks to achieve.
“Cross River State Government is not necessarily bringing money to the table for the Bakassi Deep Seaport project. The money will be coming from highly credible international players in the maritime sector. That for us is the key strategy that His Excellency, Professor Ben Ayade foresaw when he came into office in 2015. And that is the way forward because most world economies today are private sector driven”. He said
In line with the above, Mr Odiba Odiba, the Director- General of Cross River Bureau of Public Private Partnership (BPPP), stressed that the PPP model for the seaport project will be based on design, built, operate and transfer.
“The private sector is the engine for driving economic development and that is basically what we are doing with the Bakassi Deep Seaport project. Whether or not His Excellency, Professor Ben Ayade will finish the project before his tenure runs out is not the question, the main thing is that we have a visioner, someone that opened the space and that person is His Excellency”.
Also present at the meeting are the Civil society Organisations represented by Mrs Glory Patrick Etokeren of Budget, Transparency and Accountability Network, BTAN.