The Minister of Transportation, Mr Mu’azu Sambo, has directed the management of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, (NIMASA), to promptly deploy the Modular Floating Dockyard acquired by the agency.
NIMASA Director General, Dr Bashir Jamoh, gave the directive in a statement in Lagos on Monday.
Jamoh said that the minister described the deployment of the dockyard as one of the low hanging fruits he hoped would be delivered to the nation within the next few months.
“When we met with the minister last month, he made it clear that we need to deploy the Modular Floating Dockyard for the benefit of Nigerians.
“ The truth is that we are working round the clock daily to ensure the dockyard is put to use.
“We are working closely with the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA using lessons from past mistakes, to ensure a productive and sustainable deployment of the modular dockyard,” he said.
The NIMASA boss said that both NIMASA and NPA were set to complete the operationalisation of the NIMASA dockyard.
He said this would begin with the installation of dolphins and repair of facilities at the NPA Continental Shipyard facility, from where the floating dock would be operated.
Jamoh noted that NIMASA had completed the ongoing discussions with its co-partner, NPA and other managing partners to provide the Continental Shipyard for the anchoring of the Dockyard.
“The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) is closely providing guidance for the deployment of the national asset on a Public Private Partnership PPP model.
“The floating dock needs to go through an installation process before it starts functioning or be put to use.”