Oluyinka Onigbinde
There are clear indications that the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) is fooling the Nigerian maritime industry after several promises to put the N50 billion floating dock to work five years after its arrival in the country.
Shipping Position Daily recalls that under the present administration of Dr. Bashir Jamoh as Director-General of NIMASA, the agency has promised to put the floating dock to use four times and it has failed to keep this promise.
The latest being at a media parley in January this year where the DG said it has perfected the arrangement to ensure that the floating dockyard that was acquired in 2018, began operations before the end of the first quarter (March) of this year.
Jamoh gave the assurance for the umpteenth time during a media parley to review the agency’s activities in the last one year. He had said that the delayed operations of the dockyard were partly due to the long process involved in the privatization and concession of government property.
He further said that the floating dock would be handled through a public-private partnership arrangement and that, by the middle of February; NIMASA should be able to get the floating dock back in operation.
He had said that NIMASA had completed the process and that the DG of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) was the NIMASA office recently to hand over the approval certificate to the agency.
According to Jamoh, the ICRC gave the agency the approval to privatise the modular floating dock owing to the fact that it is a bankable, doable and profitable venture.
He had said: “We expect that by the end of the first quarter of this year, the floating dockyard will begin operations.
“We have gone ahead to do negotiations with the managing partners, and the co-partner, which is the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) that is going to provide the Continental Shipyard for the anchoring of the dockyard. Some people are presently in Dubai to inspect the facilities of the managing partner”.
He said the foreign partners have also visited Nigeria to ensure that the floating dock is in good shape and that NIMASA has changed all the parts of the dockyard that needed to be changed, before it could be put into use.
However, checks by our correspondent at the end of the first quarter, 2022 revealed that nothing significant has changed regarding the state of the floating dock that has been kept at the naval dockyard for over five years.
Our correspondent who visited the ‘resting place’ of the floating dock at the naval dockyard in Lagos observed that the facility was rusty and abandoned with visible signs of lack of maintenance.
Also when our correspondent visited the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) dockyard where it is expected that the floating dock will be moved to, there was no plan in place to suggest that the floating dock is ready to be received at the NPA facility.
Apparently tired of several failed promises to put the floating dock to use by NIMASA, many maritime industry stakeholders refused to comment when questioned about the floating dock.
“We are tired of giving suggestions over and over again, how many of the suggestions have they made use of, why must we keep repeating the same thing for over five years and nothing is coming out of it, please, I am tired, one stakeholder lamented.
“There is nothing to talk about the dock. If you like to talk from now till tomorrow, what has been done has been done. It is a wasted resource and a loss. When you don’t plan for a project before executing it, then you have already failed from the beginning. The dock was brought in for some certain reasons, and we have all seen the result. I don’t want to comment anymore” Captain Alfred Oniye, a maritime stakeholder, told our correspondent recently.
Also, speaking also to our correspondent, Otunba Kunle Folarin, Chairman Nigerian Port Consultative Council (NPCC) opined that NIMASA has no business in acquiring a floating dock in the first place. He added that, according to Port Act 1965 that has been amended severally, NPA should be in charge of the floating dock. He advised NIMASA to either lease it out or totally transfer of the floating dock to NPA.
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According to him, “If you look at the NPA Act who is in charge of the floating dock, by law, who is in charge of the maintenance of the port, who is the authority on issues that deal with shipping in relation to port activities, it is the NPA. It is there in the Port Act of 1965 as amended severally up to 2004”.
“By definition, a floating dock is a maintenance equipment for compliance purposes. You cannot put a ship on water without being seaworthy, so the question is, is there anything in the NIMASA Act that gives them power for maintaining ships?
“Why should NIMASA order a floating dock? Is it to showcase their presence in the maritime domain, is it a distress equipment to handle ships in distress, we need to know all of this” he said.
When questioned as to what can be done about the present state of the floating dock, he said: “Do they (NIMASA) have a legal backing to do what they are doing; the floating dock should be given to NPA who by law should use that equipment either on lease or total transfer with approval from the FMOT”.
Efforts to get the reaction of NIMASA regarding the state of the dock and the DG’s failed promises proved abortive, as the Assistant Director, Public Relations; Mr Edward Osagie, failed to get back to our correspondent one week after, despite phone calls and text messages sent as reminder to that effect.
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