NIMASA Floating Dock to Create Three Multi-billion Naira Business Conglomerates

…How it would help in disbursement of CVFF Fund.

The Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) Dr Bashir Jamoh has revealed that the deployment of the N50billion Modular Floating Dock of the agency would create three additional business conglomerates which would generate revenue for the country.

Speaking during a recent courtesy visit to the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Muhammed Bello-Koko, the NIMASA boss highlighted the three business conglomerates to include; Ship Building, Repairs and Recycling.

According to him, this would assist indigenous shipowners in the disbursement of the much awaited Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) because ships would now be built in Nigeria.

Dr Jamoh said that both NIMASA and NPA are set to complete the operationalization of the NIMASA Modular Floating Dockyard with installation of dolphins and repair of dilapidated facilities at the NPA facility where the floating dock would be operated from.

He noted that NIMASA has completed the ongoing discussions with it’s managing partners and it’s co-partner, NPA to provide the continental shipyard for the anchoring of the Dockyard.

He explained that the floating dock needs to go through an installation process before it starts functioning or be put to use.

“Since we brought the floating dock, there is no space for us to keep it.
Three separate facilities would be needed; a shipyard that would warehouse the modular floating dock, a foundry that would convert the wrecks currently being removed all over the country into reusable materials, and a Dockyard that would use the recycled materials from the foundry to manufacture new vessels.

“The floating dock facility would give birth to three business conglomerates involving ship repairs, building and recycling.

“We have three conglomerate businesses now, the ship repairs, ship building, as well as ship recycling, instead of ship repairs only. The modular floating dock is now giving birth to three additional major industries.

“This would now transform the issue of the CVFF disbursement that we have been looking forward to.

“What we need to do now is that, anything that is what doing, is what doing well, we would have docked the facility in the last six months, but there is no point deploying such a huge investment in a place where it would not be properly managed.

“The floating dock final reports would be presented to the FEC, and at the end of the day, the agency would come out stronger.

“The equipment that would be used to install the dolphins are not available in Nigeria, they have to be imported temporarily.

“We are not targeting only Nigeria, but the entire Gulf of Guinea, as well as international ships coming into the region, they would have to start using our facility, in addition, we would now conserve our resources that we used to go to Ghana and other smaller countries to repair our vessels” he stated

On his part, the Managing Director of NPA, Mohammed Bello-Koko said NIMASA already has the cirtificate of No Objection from the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) and that this is a good thing.

He said “Once all outstanding challenges at the NPA shipyard is sorted out, it goes to FEC for approval.
It would generate revenue, and job employment for Nigerians”