LASWA Targets Zero Accident On Waterways In 2023

The General Manager, Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA), Oluwadamilola Emmanuel, has said that the authority is targeting zero accident on Lagos waterways in 2023.

LASWA GM disclosed this in an interview with The Daily Times, on the sideline at his 40th birthday celebration, held at LASWA head office in Falomo Lagos at the weekend.

According to him, in 2023, we will keep on building on safety and we want to get zero accident on our waterways. And for us to achieve that, we have to be preventive, build on our safety systems, established them and then upgrade them.

“We have to get more operators with more boat so that we can move more people on our water. This year rain is kicking off, so we want to ensure that the rails can link to waterways and waterways can link to roads. Our utmost priority is to ensure that boat can easily move from port A to Port B.

“He added that, we are looking on how we can Improve the services and operation of our man power that’s the captain and Deckon,so this year as well we want to see how they currently drive there boats how they relate with passengers.”

While explaining the authority achievement in year 2022, Emmanuel noted that I don’t know where to start in terms of achievement but to be honest, our first priority is to ensuring very safe waterways and I am really glad that last year we had one of the best record where we just had 2 only major incident.

“If you know about waterways we always have about 10,15, 17 accident but last year we only had 2 major incident and it’s was not because we were wishing its happened but we put certain measures in place.We partners with both state and federal agency to ensure that we have safer ways”, he added.

He, however, added that with the establishment of the new command and control center, we can easily monitor the waterways with extra water guard which we now have at other locations.

Part of our challenges is funding, we are just seeing more funding, we are glad that we now have foreign interest to support us and government too is ready support us because no state or federal government can do it on its own.

The LASWA MD give glory to God on his 40th birthday, that without God, we will not be able to achieve anything. That if he looks where he is coming from, that he knows God has been so grateful to him.

“God always use people for me, people helped me and have also helped people as well and I will continue to help people, it gives me a lot of joy and reflection, I am looking forward to a better year ahead, greater impact in whatever capacity am giving and my achievements in earth”, he said.