The Lagos Waterways Authority (LASWA) has commenced moves to launch the waterways control tower as part of efforts to monitor marine transport activities of boat operators and other water craft operations.
The move is aimed to monitor and control boats plying the waterways to forestall occurrence of accidents through preventive and precautionary measures.
General Manager, LASWA, Mr. Damilola Emmanuel, stated this in a chat with our correspondents in his office on Thursday.
Emmanuel added that the state government is upgrading the search and rescue units of the authority in furtherance to expand to other locations.
“The search and rescue is to avail helps to boat accident victims on time before the situation gets out of hand.”
Emmanuel explained that safety is paramount on waterways in order to boost the confidence of passengers and also to reduce the traffic on the roads.
“Where we currently are now is upgrading safety on the inland waterways which is critical to the development of inland waterways because there is another of passengers confidence issue and phobia for water transportation
“The state government embarking on enhancing safety infrastructure on the waterways
“One of them is the launch of the waterways control room which we are working on and we are also upgrading our search and rescue units to expand to other locations.
When asked why the agency had to provide life jackets for operators, he said the state government always subsidised it for affordability,thus serving the purpose of helping the operators also
He quipped that the agency has a way of monitoring the operators on usage of life jackets saying any operator that defaults, would be severely penalised.
“We are also continuing our life jackets donation and life jacket sensitisation of all passengers.
Speaking further, the GM stated that the state has embarked on rehabilitation of sixteen jetties and terminals across the length of the state.
His words,” Now, in terms of bigger infrastructural projects, the state government is rehabilitating sixteen jetties and terminals across the entire length of the state while also channelising two major routes on the Waterways,” he said.
