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By Steve Agbota
Director General of Nigerian Maritime Administration Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Bashir Jamoh, has assured maritime stakeholders that the agency’s modular floating dock is in the process of being deployed.
The modular floating dock, acquired at an estimated cost of N50 billion by NIMASA will soon be in operations as the two top maritime agencies are facilitating its deployment.
Jamoh disclosed this during a visit to Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Hadiza Bala-Usman, at the NPA headquarters, Marina, Lagos.
“I am here to affirm that the modular floating dock has come to stay. We have concluded arrangements for its deployment and operation and date for its commissioning would be announced soon.” He said.
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In an interactive after meeting with the NPA Managing Director, the NIMASA boss recounted the process of securing the NPA Continental Shipyard for the floating dock, and getting approval from the Federal Ministry of Transportation as well as the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC). He emphasised that obtaining these approvals were important preliminary conditions “because of the need to engage managing partners and ICRC is in charge of the mode of operations and Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.”
In her remarks, Bala-Usman, stressed the need to promote the NIMASA local dry dock to the maximum capacity by placing the NPA’s Continental Shipyard at the agency’s disposal as a preferred location.
She said NPA would go into an agreement with NIMASA on the handing over of the authority’s dockyard, jetty locations, and warehouses within the area to facilitate the installation of the modular floating dock.
“We believe the floating dock is an integral part of the maritime sector and we like to commend NIMASA for starting this and NPA will continue to provide the necessary support as it relates to the aspect of our shareholding within the SPV being guided by the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC).
“As it is, NPA has confirmed and reiterated that it will support and hand over those facilities within the next few weeks to enable NIMASA to conclude the movement of the modular floating dock from the Naval Dockyard to the Continental dockyard. This is a very welcome development for the sector and we look forward to patronising and using the dockyard facility for our vessels and other vessels of government agencies,” she stated.
