Our Challenges Of Managing Accident At Sea – NIWA

Following the recent boat mishaps in Lagos State, and other parts of the country, the General Manager, Lagos Zone of the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), Mr. Muazu Sambo  recently had stakeholders meeting with boat operators, jetty owners, waterways passengers associations as well as journalists to deliberate on causes and preventive measures. MMS Plus newspaper was there to bring you his comments, enjoy it:

 The Riot Act

Now, it is the operators like Sea Coach that we want to encourage and support. I know that if I ban the boats people may suffer but only for a while. I have told operators that we must begin to think out of the box. We cannot be doing the same thing repeatedly and expect a different result. Drastic situations call for drastic measures. Let us ban these boats out rightly and I can assure you that people would be shocked at the rate better vessels with improved value would be brought in. Some of the operators have told me how expensive it is to acquire the ideal boats arguing that the passengers may not be able to pay the fees.

This may be true but I told them that we could design boats that are fuel or diesel economical. It is unfortunate that Nigeria doesn’t manufacture engines and these components have to be imported. They are not only expensive but also further affected by the high exchange rate as the dollar goes for N365. Nevertheless, most of these troublesome engines create problems for the operators on a daily basis. So I reviewed all these and said we may not totally ban such boats but we may do something about them, including the simple things like improving the regulatory oversight functions of the personnel. This isn’t a difficult thing to do. Some of my observations from the last stakeholders’ meeting was that what causes fatalities during boat mishaps was because these boats were overcrowded.

Once there is a mishap and the boats are open and you’re on life-jackets one should jump into the water and the life-jacket would keep you afloat. You only have to be wearing the right quality of life-jacket and strap it properly. You can be afloat for a minimum of one hour and rescue is most likely to come before an hour especially as NIWA has improved search and rescue operations in the nation’s waterways. We have also improved on supervision to ensure only proper life-jackets are used and that they are worn properly before boarding boats. Although certain operators and stakeholders argue that life-jackets don’t expire, it is important for operators and users to check for those that may be worn out because that’s what gives you the buoyancy. Foam life-jackets typically do not expire but you need to be cautious about crushing them. Don’t use them for a kneepad which can result in lower buoyancy. It is also important to guarantee the boat balance.

NIWA’s Beach Masters

We are training beach masters to be located at every jetty and we intend to ensure they are present at jetties in the next two weeks. These beach masters are going to receive Merchant Navy training and they would be responsible for educating boat operators, discipline the captains and we would have regular training sessions for boat captains only. These beach masters would also receive code of conduct highlighting the do’s and don’ts. This would ensure that they understand the guidelines and global best practices in the business of boat operations. This would also enable the captains appreciate how serious the matter is. We are talking about issues that could lead to loss of lives. It would probably be historic in Nigeria that senior officers like someone at my level would be meeting with boat captains and not their Managing Directors or investors. We would make it a routine to visit them and discus with them regularly. We would also inform the passengers and the general public knows who the beach master in every jetty is. We would also disclose the names and phone numbers of our search and rescue team and we ensured that they live around.

We also have a police command here in Marina and they are available 24 hours every day so there is no reason to not be able to call for emergencies. I have also started a culture of visiting these jetties at random to see what happens there. I want to be sure the passengers use the life-jackets. I want to be sure that the life-jackets are the proper quality. If we find an operator who has twenty life-jackets and only five are standard, we would seize the other fifteen so that he can only attend to five people whose safety would be guaranteed. These frequent checks would also ensure that the operators buy the standard life-jackets.

Floating Jetties

Another area I would love to address is the issue of operators using boats belonging to other operators parked at a jetty to get off the platform. This question goes to the operators of Texas Marine why is it that your employees do not allow other users utilize your boats to get off the platform. I think safety is involved and because the safety of lives is involved, it should override every other commercial or competitive consideration.

I want to appreciate the Managing Director of Tarzan Marine Enterprise, Mr. Gani Balogun for providing his floating jetty for NIWA and waterways passengers to benefit and ease the burden of disembarking boats in Lagos State. Although the Lagos annex of NIWA intends to generate money to pay for this service, Balogun’s action is a contribution to the society that would be appreciated for years to come. This solves the problem observed when the jetties are just the size of the boats. The jetty should be designed with the kind of boats expected to use it so that it is comfortable for people to board and alight from the boats.

I want to assure waterways passengers in Lagos that I would do everything humanly possible to continue to ensure safety, improved standards and efficiency of the waterways transport system in Lagos State. This is a solemn pledge because of the effects the recent deaths from boat mishaps have had on me. Even if I wasn’t going to do it as a public servant, I am obliged to fix things as a human to prevent further deaths of other humans.