By Folashade Alli
Following recent activities at the Lagos harbour, the Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola(SAN) has accused the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency(NIMASA) and the Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) for negligence of duty at the harbour.
Fashola who expressed his dissatisfaction with the two government agencies at a transport summit held in Lagos recently said that their negligence cost the state government a huge sum of money.
According to him, “We want to know whether or not if it is NIMASA’s responsibility or NPA but the truth is that every vessel that beaches on our coastline creates massive ecological problems for sunlight, erosion and it costs us millions of naira for the state government to scrap and escravate this vessels in a manner that does suggest to us that the agency that is responsible for protecting the coastline with entrance to Lagos harbour is really not up and doing about this responsibility” he lamented .
Fashola also complained on the illegal activities perpetrated by foreigners majorly Europeans at the harbour which poses threat to the security of people in the environment.
He said that the illegal activities poses security threat to people in the environment and the relevant agencies should take a decisive step on the issue.
In his words, “We are also aware that some European ship owners because of the huge cost of service of maintenance in their country who have found Nigeria and our waterways a place to come and abandon, out ware their very old and un-sea worthy ships. Some of them also find their way into our shores which summarily means that we must police our waterways and it is a very serious line of defence in terms of security,” He lamented.