Anambra governor Peter Obi has said that efficient inland water transportation is necessary in the transformation of the national economy to actualise Vision 20 20 20.
 
Obi said this when the management team of the Federal Inland Waterways Authority paid him a courtesy visit at government house Awka. He said that the country needed effective water transportation at this time as a critical component in strengthening the entire national transport system and easy movement of goods and people from one part of the country to another.
 
Obi regretted that the absence of functional water transportation had placed a heavy burden on road transportation, leading to early collapse of many roads across the country.
 
The governor said that Onitsha as the hub of commercial and economic activity required direct transportation of goods from the various ports across the country through transhipment. He called the attention of the authorities to the indiscriminate allocation of water fronts in Onitsha to traders to build shops and other structures that threaten the environment and destroy the state government’s beautification programme and urged them to recover the area.
 
The managing director of the authority, Mr. Ahmed Yar’adua, said the country was blessed with over 3, 000 klms of waterways covering over 28 states and said that if well harnessed would boost effective water transportation in the country.
 
Yar’adua explained that the lower Niger had been dredged and could now take barges from Baro, Lokoja, Oguta and other ports, while the Onitsha water port had been rehabilitated and awaiting commissioning by the president.