Safety: LASWA, maritime organisation, others to partner on Lagos waterways
The Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA), says it will partner the Maritime Organisation of West and Central Africa (MOWCA) and Interferry, to improve waterways safety in Lagos.
Interferry is the shipping association representing the ferry industry worldwide.
The General Manager, LASWA, Mr Oluwadamilola Emmanuel, said this while hosting a delegation from MOWCA and Interferry on a facility tour of Lagos State waterways assets, on Monday in Lagos.
The LASWA general manager also hosted members of the Transportation Correspondents Association of Nigeria (TCAN) on the sideline of the facility tour.
According to Emmanuel, the tour is aimed at looking at the safety levels on the states inland waterways and exploring areas of improvement.
“Safety is very important to anything in life, more or less in water transportation.
“We realise its importance, as when MOWCA approached Lagos State on where they will host Ferry Safety Conference, Lagos agreed to partner with them .
“We have enjoyed safety on Lagos inland waterways and we want to continue to improve on safety knowing fully well that we will be doing this with international partner who will come in and share knowledge with us on how to improve on our safety practices,” he said.
He described Interferry, as an international ferry safety body, who promote ferry safety across the world, from Europe to Africa to Asia, noting that they had been doing this all over the world, but had not been to the West and Central Africa.
On safety measures, Emmanuel said that the first thing was the wearing of life jackets, adding that LASWA also introduced the bi-annual inspection of boats and technology to make things more smarter.
“We have been able to monitors real time some of our jetties and we have communication with some boats as they are on the waterways.
“We will continue to talk about safety to the passengers, even organise trainings and workshops for the captains and deck hands in partnership with some companies.
“The LASWA control centre has been of massive help in our operations because it has helped us gather data that will make us give informed decisions,” he said.
On the Omi-Eko project, the LASWA boss described it as a big one for Lagos State that would revolutionise water transportation in the state with the introduction of electric ferries, upgrading of existing jetties and terminals and dredging of island waterways and capacity building for LASWA.
He noted that the electric ferries cannot face out the present ferries, adding that the whole idea was to integrate them, work together to get things right.
He disclosed that LASWA was encouraging the informal sector to form cooperatives so that it would be easy for government to support them.
“Our safety measures have improved, we don’t want to blow our trumpet, I believe the media is the one to tell us the safest place in terms of water transportation in Nigeria.
“Now we are doing 54,000 passengers per day and we believe it will increase on a daily basis with the introduction of the new ferries,” he said.
Also, Mr Mike Corrigan, Chief Executive Officer, Interferry, noted that they are in Lagos to learn and at the same time to help LASWA to improve on the waterways in Lagos and Nigeria.
“I am very impressed in terms of how LASWA has fared and how far they still want to go. This is why Interferry is so happy to be part of the process.
“ We have come from all parts of the world to learn and give LASWA some of the expertise that we have learnt because we have all been on the same journey for over a period of time.
“On what we are bringing, I have a team of about 12 experts in safety matters from navigating to safe operation to vessels to life savings, pretty much about safety.
“We want to tell LASWA what we have learnt and offer guidance and assistance. LASWA is now a member of Interferry, a world wide ferry trade association, we represent the ferry association around the world with almost 300 members,” he said.
Corrigan noted that they planned coming to Africa most often, to be able to improve waterways in Africa and offer their services to anybody who would like to participate with Interferry.
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