Seaports set to commence 24-hour operations - NIMASA

The Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Bashir Jamoh, said on Tuesday that Heads of maritime agencies in Nigeria have agreed to work on modalities for a quick commencement of 24 hours operation at the ports.

Mr Jamoh disclosed this in Lagos after the second edition of the monthly meeting of heads of maritime parastatals, held at the NIMASA headquarters.

Jamoh said the meeting discussed issues bordering on maritime safety and security, port efficiency, intermodal transportation, as well as synergy among agencies in the sector, News Express reported.

He said the forum of CEOs of the agencies had given the maritime industry a platform to grow and contribute more to Nigeria’s economic development.

According to him: “This meeting is the second in the series and it has started yielding positive fruits. For instance, the issue of berthing the NIMASA floating dock, which has lingered for a couple of years, has been resolved through this meeting and very soon it would be deployed for use.”

The NIMASA DG stated that the heads of agencies agreed to play their respective roles to facilitate the operation of 24 hours a day, seven days a week port services, noting that this would help to decongest the ports and tremendously impact on the Ease of Doing Business initiative of the Federal Government.

Jamoh said the meeting constituted a committee to produce a work plan for the 24-hour port system, and agreed to carry communities around the port environments along in order to ensure safe operations within the port vicinities and beyond.

“We are looking at the workability of 24-hour port services to ease the pressure on our ports in terms of congestion. We also agreed to work with the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) on how movement of cargoes from the ports can be done by rail to reduce the pressure on our roads.

“Our focus is also to ensure containers are moved by barges to dry ports outside the port environments. All these would help in the efficiency and effectiveness of our ports,” he stated.