The National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) said the inter-agency committee has again clamped down on six unseaworthy barges operating illegally within the Lagos inland waterways.
Recall that following increasing reports of abuses of process in the operation of barges and private jetties, the joint operations team in March clamped down on some unseaworthy barges while three illegal jetties were been sealed.
The establishment of an inter-agency committee comprises; representatives of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Nigerian Maritime Administration Agency (NIMASA), Nigerian Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) and the Lagos State Inland Waterways Authority (LASWA).
The committee in March commenced the “clearing of the waterways of lay-by barges and tugboats along Ibeji/Ilashe axis and as far as the Kirikiri Lighter Terminal and Mile Two Bridge, as well as the removal of wrongly anchored barges that are obstructing visibility along the Kirikiri channel.
But speaking with the Lagos Area Manager of NIWA, shortly after a parley with the Nigerian Shippers’Council ,Engineer Sarat Lara Buraimah told our correspondent that the watercrafts were intercepted along the Lagos waterways because of “unseaworthy condition.”
Buraimah said that the joint patrol has been effectively manned by personnel of the combined agencies and has so far reduced the number of accidents, unlicensed jetties and unseaworthy watercrafts along the brown waters in Lagos.
She warned operators with fake licenses and documents to register with the appropriate agencies of the government, saying there will be no hiding place for them to operate barging activities in Lagos.
She also disclosed that NIWA and Samsung Heavy Industries have entered into strategic alliance on the construction of barges for the waterways authority.
Aside licensing of eight companies that will commence barging activities from Lagos to Onitsha river port, the Area Manager explained that NIWA would also build and own barges for inland waterways activities in Nigeria
She said, “We want to collaborate with Samsung Heavy Duties to build ur barges in Nigeria, so that it can be manned by Nigeria and so we are looking at that direction.
“If not because of the recent COVID19 pandemic that made most of their expatriates go back to their country I think we might have gone far with the project but they are coming back very soon because they are being vaccinated as we speak.
“In the next two or three months I think we will kick off,” she noted.