The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) is to rehabilitate the Nigerian Maritime Resource Development Centre (NMRDC) Kirikiri, Apapa, Lagos, to improve revenue generation and ensure the operations of the agency conform with international best practices.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Board of Directors of NIMASA on Thursday led by Retired Maj.-Gen. Jonathan Garba, visited the neglected facilities at the resource centre.
Garba said that NIMASA had that capacity to rehabilitate the centre to be working effectively, adding that the agency had enough manpower manning sensitive departments at the centre.
“We are going to give every challenge affecting the function of the NMRDC frontier attack.
“The operational challenges facing the centre are issues that should have been handled before now but the present administration will take up the responsibility and resuscitate the centre.
“Most of you who are here should henceforth not seen yourselves as in Siberia because you are redeployed to NMRDC to work and make Nigeria proud.
“The facilities here if they are working will make every country know the position of the centre.
“We are going to attempt to put up policies to bring back all the facilities in the centre,” NAN quotes Garba as saying.
He expressed the readiness of the present management of NIMASA to resuscitate the centre and fully engage experienced staff who were struggling in making the centre functioning.
The Board chairman said the Management intended to find solutions to the challenges facing the centre, adding that “the management cannot not approach all the challenges at the same time’’.
According to him, the management would look into the future development of the borehole in order to provide adequate water supply for the centre.
He said that more than 15 years ago, some staff were not promoted, adding that the present administration had taken stronger steps to be promoting staff every year.
Garba said that the management had demonstrated this by promoting over 300 staff in 2016.
He commended the staff and urged them to remain committed and support the management to achieve its objectives.
Speaking earlier, the Deputy Director of the Centre, Mr George Iyang, said the centre was conceived by the defunct National Maritime Authority in 2001.
He explained that the complex was built with the Regional Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre, adding that the centre was commissioned in May 27, 2008, by the Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
Iyang said that the facilities at the centre were neglected due to oversight.
He said that there was need for rehabilitation of the building, adding that the building also lacked dedicated infrastructure and Maintenance Mechanism Unit.
The deputy director said that the management had just established in Feb. 2017 the Co-ordination and Management Bureau.
“The centre is lacking security, traffic, poor community relations, inadequate information technology, library, power, inadequate clinic, canteen and so on.
“There years back the NMRDC building test was conducted and confirmed that all the structures in the centre were strong except the library building that need thorough rehabilitation,” NAN quotes Iyang as saying.
He, however solicited the support of the management to make the centre active and prosecute the contractor that built the library section of the centre.
(NAN)
AIC/AJA