Greater Port Harcourt master plan to be adjusted

Rivers State government has resolved to adjust the master plan upon which the Greater Port Harcourt City (also called Port Harcourt Mega City) of eight local councils in size valued at over N800 billion is being built.

The government has also resolved to give greater roles to the private sector (public private partnership, PPP) in continuing the project started by the immediate past administration more than eight years ago.

These plans were made known last week by the new administrator of Greater Port Harcourt City Development Authority (GPHCDA), Desmond Akawor, Nigeria’s former ambassador to South Korea and one-time minister of state for FCT Abuja.

Akawor, who succeeded the pioneer administrator, Aleruchi Cookey-Gam, said while featuring at the Federated Correspondents Chapel Forum of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Port Harcourt that every master plan required adjustment or review every 10 years.

The major feature of the review would be to mark out sacred places and developments for preservation instead of the present plan to demolish almost everything. He said the present plan was based on satellite imagery system but that the new approach would involve physical identification of shrines and settlements that must be preserved.

He also said the private developers would be given certain projects to execute on PPP and recover their money. One of such projects would be the M-10 Road of 10 lanes from the international airport to Onne sea part, saying the developers would charge tolls on it.

Akawor said he was the brain behind the creation of satellite towns around Abuja as minister of state and that he would use the same experience and strategy to develop the Mega City in Port Harcourt, assuring that the Nyesom Wike administration was set to develop satellite towns such as Isiopko, Eleme, Bori, and Degema so that people can live, play and work in those towns like they were in the Garden City.

On funding, Akawor said some projects were to be completed by offering parcels of land to the contractors to develop and sell and use the funds to complete their projects. The Mega City is being built in phases, projected by 2008 to cost N800Bn for basic infrastructure. The Phase 1A is the main focus at the moment.

The new administrator said the mega city is anchored on the old city, the international airport and the Onne seaport. He said the major achievement of his team appointed in June 2015 is the building of its administrative tower in Omagwa so as to soon move from Trans-Amadi.

He also mentioned the plan to build an auto market in Iriebe area of Port Harcourt so that all mechanics, parts dealers and auto-related works would move there, and called on all hands to be on deck to deliver a new city.