NIMASA’s Floating Dock: Good venture gone awry?

In 2013, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency(NIMASA) came up with an ambitious project that is meant to stimulate the maritime industry.

This was to acquire a floating dockyard to dry dock vessels that normally leave the country for dry docking in Ghana and other African countries, thus saving the country scarce foreign exchange.

It was a laudable project meant to safe the country a huge sum of N36 billion lost in capital flight annually.

So NIMASA management placed an order for a gigantic floating dock, reputed to be the fifth largest in the world at a whopping sum of N50 billion.

The agency therefore engaged a renowned Dutch Shipbuilder, the Damen Group to undertake the project. The Damen Group is a defence, shipbuilding, and engineering conglomerate with headquarters in Gorinchem, South Holland, the Netherlands, doing business in 120 countries.

A commendable initiative which should have earned the apex maritime regulator agency accolades for the economic benefits of the project, but rather than receive praises, NIMASA, under curious circumstances, has come under scathing attacks for a project which was largely regarded as laudable in conception but poorly deployed.

We at nigeriamaritime360.com are as confounded as other maritime commentators with the poor handling and execution of this project.

We are not suggesting that the builders failed in carrying out the project to its specifications, as a matter of fact, Damen Shipyards, which commenced the building of the floating dockyard in 2014, delivered the facility in June 2018, slightly behind schedule.

However, our worries and anger of stakeholders is that one year after taking delivery of the world class facility, it is still lying idle at a Naval Dockyard at a great costs to government.

We are tempted to question the wisdom behind embarking on such a gigantic technical project without adequate preparations and provision for where it would permanently berth to dispense services.

For over 10 months, the floating dock was literally an orphan as NIMASA could not secure a berthing space to harbour the facility.

Terminal operators were asking for staggering sums of money ranging between $35,000 to $52,000 as daily berthing charges, while Nigerdock, a shipyard facility at Snake Island, Tin-Can port, was demanding for $26,000 daily to berth the floating dock in its facility.

These charges obviously were too outrageous for NIMASA to manage and consequently, abandoned the multi-billion naira facility at the Marina jetty, where it was idling away, An average sum of $5,000 was being expended on the platform as a daily running cost.

Last month, the facility suddenly vanished from the Marina waterfront after it was denied a berthing space by private jetty operators. This gave rise to wild speculations that it was missing.

The furore generated by the speculations forced the management of the agency to disclose the new abode of the floating dock which was eventually traced to Naval Dockyard.

We are as much as disturbed by this shoddy and untidy handling of the platform by NIMASA just as other stakeholders are disgusted.

Why has the agency not procured the berthing space for the facility before its arrival in 2018?

It took the builders four years to build and deliver the platform.

During that period, NIMASA could have developed a world class jetty where the floating dockyard could rest to discharge its services and earn foreign exchange.

NIMASA has no excuse to still be shopping for a space after four years that it took the facility to be built and a year after taking its delivery.

To say the least, it smacks of unprofessionalism and sheer negligence on the part of the management of the agency.

The explanation offered by the helmsman of the agency, Dakuku Peterside on the matter further accentuates the fact that the agency was not ready for business.

At his recent interactive session with journalists, Dakuku said the facility would be operated on Public-Private Partnership and that it will commence operations immediately after commissioning by President Muhammadu Buhari.

“We are planning to ensure that the permanent location of the facility would benefit our students for training and we have also engaged the builders to manage the facility for a year at a Naval facility while further arrangements are being worked out” disclosed Dakuku.

We consider this statement as most unfortunate which shows that the agency has put the cart before the horse.

All these ‘arrangements’ being worked out and those that were hurriedly put in place, to our mind, should have been concluded ever before the platform arrived the country.

Doing them now while the facility is lying idle for a year running and being maintained by tax payers money is unacceptable.

The Naval Dockyard where the facility is currently harboured is only a temporary abode, as the agency is possibly still pondering on where to locate the platform permanently.

We frown at this gross incompetence and dereliction of duties which is rubbing the country off scarce foreign exchange.

More worrisome is the fact that the country has lost about N36 billion in foreign exchange earnings because the facility had been idle a year after it was delivered.

Dakuku, by inference, declared this when he said that the country will safe that amount as foreign exchange when the facility commences operations.

We are further saddened that nobody knows, probably except Dakuku, how long this wastage will last because the facility can only commence operations “immediately after commissioning by President Muhammadu Buhari”.

And we don’t know how soon that commissioning will take place.

In as much as we commend the initiative of the agency, we are saddened by the unfortunate twist in the fate of an otherwise good and profitable venture .

Since the facility has now been handed over to its builders on one year contract to maintain it, NIMASA should as a matter of urgency secure a partnership with a competent company which is versed in dockyard operations to operate it on a PPP arrangement before the current consultancy by the builders expires.

We are glad that Dakuku said this much, but we urge that such arrangement should be considered as quickly as possible and in a transparent manner.

The issue of permanent abode for the facility should also be sorted out to achieve twin objectives.

To safe the country the cost of using temporary berthing space and to put the facility to use to earn income.

Depending when the floating dockyard will be commissioned, which was the condition the agency gave before the facility can commence work, we urge NIMASA to halt the annual capital flight by deploying the platform to a profitable venture.

It is disheartening to note that the continued idleness of the floating dockyard has allegedly caused the country a whooping sum of over one billion naira as running cost since 2018 without commensurate financial benefits to the country.

Early deployment of the huge multi-billion naira floating dockyard to optimal use by NIMASA, without further pussyfooting, would take the facility out of its present mystery and trigger harvest of economic gains for the country.