By CrossRiverWatch Admin
The Chief Economic Adviser to the governor of Cross River State, Ben Ayade and Vice Chairman State Planning Commission, Dr. Francis Ntamu, says all hands are on deck to ensure the deep seaport, one of the signature projects comes to fruition following clearance from the federal government.
Ntamu disclosed this in an exclusive interview with CrossRiverWatch recently in his office in Calabar where he said work is on schedule as the federal government has written the state to go ahead. With the project.
His words: “As we speak today we are on schedule on the Bakassi deep seaport, the project steering committee has been inaugurated and next week we would be having 16 persons from Abuja and Lagos to further the actualization of the deep seaport.
“We have a letter today from Mr. President that authorises us to proceed on the Bakassi deep seaport as long as we are able to comply with the Infrastructure Construction and Regulation Commission guidelines and the Ministry of Transportation guidelines and we have been living through that pact”.
Ntamu added that the deep seaport is trigger to economic revolutions in the State as it is “One of the closest commercially viable maritime opportunities for our brothers and sisters in the north east, north central as well as countries in the Chad Basin; the likes of Chad and Niger and to some extend Northern Cameroon”.
Furthermore, he said the State Planning Commission is developing a 30 year plan for Cross River State, adding that, this plan was necessary as it will aid investors to understand where the State currently is and where it wants to be.
“If you are an investor coming on board, you will want to know for instance in the next ten years where is Cross River in terms of demography, in terms of our population. We are about three million today, where are we likely to be in the next fifteen years and all this will empty into the feasibility of the project” Ntamu said.