NIMASA vows to put idle floating dock into use by first quarter of 2022.

Segun Oladipupo

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) on Friday said that the multi billion naira modular floating dock lying idle over the years would be put into use before end of first quarter of 2022.

The Director General of the apex regulatory agency, Dr. Bashir Jamoh stated this while fielding questions from newsmen at the headquarters of the agency yesterday.

He said the agency is presently working on Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement with foreign investors to revitilise the multi million dollar facility.

He said that the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) would be a party to the new arrangement by provisions of its continental shipyard.

He assured stakeholders of the maritime industry that the floating dock will be operational before the end of first quarter of 2022 .

His words, “However, we don’t want to operate it by government or NIMASA alone but for Public Private Partnership. As usual,the issue of privatisation of any government property is not a product but a process.

“We have been undergoing this process, and the DG ICRC was here for the first certificate telling us that privatisation of the floating dock is profitable, doable and they gave us the go ahead to do that.

“We have also gone ahead with the Managing partner and co-pattern, which is the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) with  the provision of Continental Shipyard

“We expect in no distant future, maximum by February, 2022, privatisation must have been approved by the Federal Executive Council because it is a national asset.

He said that the cost implications cannot be handled by the federal government alone, pointing out that privatisation would in future aid the floating dock operations, saying the foreign counterparts will take up the class conditions before the usage  deployment.

While reeling out achievements of the agency in the immediate past year 2021, he stated that survey and inspection of vessels in accordance with the safety requirements of the Merchant Shipping Act 2007, 489 vessels were surveyed in 2021 which is 43.6 percent higher than the total number of condition survey carried out in 2020 at 276 vessels.

According to him, the increase indicates the seriousness of his administration on flag state survey.

He noted that for the port state control functions of NIMASA, a total of  429 foreign vessels were boarded to ensure that each vessel maintained safety, pollution standards on Nigerian waters.

He added that the total number of condition survey for flag registration was 489 in 2021 as against 276 recorded in 2020.

For the port state implementation, 675 vessels were recorded in 2021 which is 24.2 percent higher than the figure of 2020 which stood at 510 vessels.