In a bid to boost passengers’ safety in using the Lagos waters as an alternative means of transportation in the state, the Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA) has upgraded its facilities and infrastructure across the state.
Briefing newsmen at its corporate headquarters in Lagos on Friday, the General Manager, LASWA, Mr. Oluwadamilola Emmanuel revealed that the agency had set out to do upgrade of infrastructure which included jetties and terminals across the state adding that without the infrastructure, there would be no embarking or disembarking point for passengers.
Emmanuel pointed out that this year, the state government was rehabilitating 15 jetties and 1 terminal adding that work on each of the projects was underway and was at 60 percent to 70 percent completion.
He expressed the hope that very soon, the Ministry of Waterfronts and Infrastructure Development saddled with the development of infrastructure would be commissioning some of those infrastructure and also hand them over to LASWA for maintenance and supervision.
“So, upgrade of those infrastructure is very key and why are we upgrading them? Because as you know, a lot of those jetties, when they were built, they were built as community jetties. People did not imagine that there will be a large number of people living in those places and will require water transportation in mass volume. So, we realized that there was the need to cope with the current realities to upgrade those infrastructure in terms of the buildings around them, in terms of the floating pontoon attached to them and in terms of trying to know how navigable that whole channel would be”, he said.
The General Manager observed that beyond upgrading infrastructure, it was also important that specific areas along the waterways were also channelized by dredging the routes for full navigability and to ensure that along those routes, buoys were provided to let boat operators know this is the route they were plying on.
According to him, “As we speak, the Ebute-Ojo to Marina route is currently being channelized while also dredging the Ilaje area. I am sure you must have seen a bit of infrastructure around that Ilaje area. The whole point was that from Ikorodu to Falomo, we noticed that that whole Ilaje area needed to be opened up and what showed us that was when for example, the third mainland bridge was closed down, it was discovered that Ilaje was one of the major points which we could use to decongest the third mainland bridge. So, it was important that that whole Ilaje channel was opened up and that one has actually been completed. So, the whole point is that you open Ilaje channel and it links to Ikorodu and Falomo channels. So, that way, it is easy for navigability.
“And then, going on, we realized also that there were several locations which were not being covered by LASWA. As you know, when we started out, we had initially, 48 water guards and what we usually do is we post two of them to each of those locations. If you do the numbers, 48 divided by 2, that shows you that we are only covering about 24 of the infrastructure. So, we put up a submission to Mr. Governor and letting him know that to improve safety especially in this 2021, it was important that we employ more water guards, which we did.
“We employed extra 60 water guards and I will speak about that impact later on when I get to the part of speaking about the impacts. So, we employed those water guards and those water guards were deployed to several other locations because it was very important that we are overseeing what was going on in those locations as well as went along.”
Emmanuel disclosed that LASWA had currently been on construction of the very first Inland Waterways Command and Control Centre in West Africa adding that this was going to be the first time an inland waterways control room which also a command and control centre would be put up.
“The point of this is that we need to begin to see where each of these boats is going to and we need to monitor them real time and this will enable us to be able to respond to emergencies. This will also enable to gather data and the government makes decision based on data; how many people are going to this axis, how many people are living here, how many accidents occur and how many things happen. With this Command and Control Centre, we are going to begin to see how a lot of these movements are happening. It would also help us curb a lot of accidents; inform us of those who even break the rules and regulations. That command and control centre is going to be domiciled here in Falomo and what is going to happen to that command and control centre is that it is going to have long range cameras in Ikorodu and Ojo axis and around the island axis.
“We started with these three axis because these are the major places where we have a large passenger traffic and the whole idea is that we begin to monitor these activities, begin to gather data, analyze that data and it helps us make inform decisions going forward. That should be completed by the end of this year by the grace of God”, he stated.
He went on to inform that the Authority embarked on upgrading of the Emergency and Rescue Unit which hitherto were being carried out by the LASWA Patrol boats which respond to emergencies on the waterways with trained staff of the Authority.
“But there is now an urgent need to ensure that we upgrade the emergency and rescue unit. So, what have we done? We have recently trained 20 members of staff who are going to be focused on emergency and rescue strictly. So, they are going to be available 24 hours to be able to respond to emergencies.
“But let’s remember there is also no night travels currently on our waterways. So, they will be available within the responsible times of operation. Some operators still tend to flout rules and we frown at that and makes sure that whoever is caught is penalized. However, should there be any emergency at any time, we would be willing and ready to respond because we owe that to Lagosians.
“Now, these 20 members of staff are divided into 2 teams of 10 each and they are going to have stations in Ojo and Ikorodu. Currently, the infrastructure that is going to house this emergency and rescue unit has been completed. If you go to Ikorodu terminal, you will see the facility and if you go Ijegun-Egba as well which is along Ajah axis, you will also see their current building which is going to them. The equipment for them has also been procured. The only thing we are waiting for now is the second emergency boat. One of the emergency boats is already down in Falomo here; we are just waiting for the second one which will also be ready by the third week of December. So, we would have completed that and will be ready with those emergency and rescue units.
“Now, the whole idea of this emergency and rescue unit is to ensure that we can reduce the response time. The current response time is about 10 to 12 minutes; you know it is very poor. Our aim is to make sure that we reduce the response time to about 5 minutes so that within 5 minutes of any emergency, we can respond. Someone can argue that 5 minutes is a long time but let’s remember that we have promoted and we cans say that we have seen in recent years that there is about 90 percent compliance about wearing of life jackets on our waterways.
“If you are wearing your life jacket, it can keep you for up to 24 hours on the water in the case of emergency. So, the whole point is to make sure that we can get to this emergency scene within 5 to 7 minutes and of course, next year as well, we will then expand that to another axis which we consider as priority”, he concluded.
Photo: Mr. Oluwadamilola Emmanuel, General Manager, Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA).
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