Perhaps taking a cue from the success story of the concession of cargo terminals at the nation’s seaports, the Lagos State Government said it plans to concession some of the jetties it is building across the state to private operators.
There are a total of 59 jetties across the state with 29 of them currently being operated for commercial activities, while more are being planned to further open up the water transport sector.
Some of the ferry terminals are at Mile 2, Ebute Ojo, Ikpakodo in Ikorodu, Osborne in Ikoyi and Badore.
“The state government will build the infrastructure and concession to organizations that have the expertise in facility management and oil marketing companies to ensure all safety compliance are followed,” said Managing Director of Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA), Yinka Marinho.
He said the State government had signed agreement with some oil marketing companies who will be supplying fuel to the ferry terminals.
Marinho said the government was ready to sustain infrastructural development in the sector by building more jetties with fuel dump, and rehabilitating hitherto abandoned ones such as the Mile 2 jetty.
The state government, according to the LASWA boss, will continue to create the enabling environment for investors by providing huge capital infrastructure, dredging maintenance of the routes, installation of solar panel navigational buoys, radio communication equipment systems, security and safety on the waterways, awareness campaigns and training.
He said the state was committed to safety issues, and the projection was to totally eliminate all human errors that could compromise the safety of passengers and operators.
“LASWA water guard officials superintend all commercial jetties on the Lagos waterways to ensure safety compliance i.e. overloading of vessels, speeding, wearing of life jackets, carry out daily patrol with police officers on the waterways to enforce all safety rules and regulation of the authority, dredging and maintenance of the routes to a 4metre depths. Inspection on all passenger vessels to ascertain the vessels’ seaworthiness is also carried,” he said.
An average of 2 million passengers are ferried monthly on the Lagos waterways, with a projection to rise to about 4 million in two years.
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