Mr Chibuisi Onyebueke, Head, Administration and General Services, Intels Integrated Logistic Services, said that the company would build an airstrip at Ateo in Eleme in Rivers to enhance business at Onne Port.
Onyebueke, who said this while conducting newsmen on a facility tour of Intels, noted that the company had also invested billions of naira on community relations in the past years.
According to him, with the airstrip operational, oil executives coming to Onne from Lagos could transact their businesses in a day without any problems.
Onyebueke said that Intels was partnering the Lagos State Government to ensure that light planes could fly from Lekki to Onne and vice-versa.
He added that the company had obtained the necessary approvals from the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to move the project off the ground.
The Intels boss also urged the Federal Government to connect Onne Port to the national grid, adding that the firm consumes 100,000 litres of diesel daily.
We rely on generators to power our services and in the last 10 years to 15 years, we have had several meetings with officials of the Federal Ministry of Power on how to restore electricity to the port.
One key way to higher productivity is for government to let us have access to power supply to save costs.
Over 150 companies are domiciled in Onne Port. No less than 10,000 vehicles move in and out of the port on regular basis and no fewer than 80,000 people work there.
Power supply is not our core area. We will not do it,’’ Onyebueke said.
He urged government to take into consideration the sum of $8.1 billion (N1.59 trillion) investments in the port.
The Intels boss also disclosed that the firm built 981 flats, 801 rooms- hostel, a conference hall, and a restaurant which could sit 1,500 people at once, adding that the company was a one-stop shop.
We are not a foreign company. Nigerians own 85 per cent shares of the company,’’ Onyebueke said.
The company’s Deputy General Manager, Mr David Alagoa, speaking on : “Challenges With the Corporate Social Responsibility Project in Intels’’, said that the company had spent N3billion on community relations.
Alagoa said that Intels had expanded is corporate social responsibility to its 28 host communities.
He explained that the mission statement of Intels was to create an environment in which the host communities and the company become fundamentally interdependent.
This is where understanding is mutual and commitment to growth and development is total,’’ he said.
Alagoa said that the company had continued to make employment generation, empowerment and implementation of projects as its areas of focus.
He mentioned that the staff strength of the company was 14,574, in addition to the host community graduate-trainee scheme.
Alagoa said the company’s investment on scholarship was increased from N1.57million in 2011 to N37.5million in 2013.
The newsmen visited other project sites on sports, road construction, drainage, solar light, neighbourhood water, market, ICT centres, construction of classroom blocks and traditional rulers’ palaces and civic centres being implemented through Intels financial assistance.
Onyebueke said Intels also rendered free Primary Health Care Support project in all the host communities.
The team also visited the palace of Nicolas Nimenibo, the Amayanabo of Ogu, near Onne as well as its health centre where 85 patients were confirmed to have been treated.
He told the newsmen that 300 women in the various communities were taught the basic skills in sewing clothes (coveralls).
Mrs Dorcas Ekong, the Administration Manager of Intels’ Women Empowerment Porgramme Scheme Strategy (WEPSS), said the skill acquisition centre trains women in sewing clothes to become self-reliant and take care of their families.
According to her, our commitment is to close the gender gap.
It is about creating the total woman. Two hundred women are working here as supervisors, operators and non-operators and earning wages.
The women were admitted as peasant farmers, fisher-women and later trained in how to sew.
This programme started in 2013 and today the two production lines can roll out 300 coveralls (clothes) daily,’’ Ekong said.