LASWA employs 60 water guards to monitor ferries, barges

The General Manager of the Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA), Damilola Emmanuel, said the agency has employed over 60 water guards to check incessant accidents on waterways, according to nigeriamaritime360.

Emmanuel said the move was to enable the agency cover all water transportation routes and forestall the activities of boat operators who flout standing rules against night travel.

In his words, “Now in terms of night travels, we have our water guards and just this year for the first time in over about 12 or 13 years of the Authority, we are able to employ about 60 more water guards because there was a lot more places where water transportation runs and we didn’t have our presence but now through the employment of these water guards, we deployed them  to those locations where frequently, they were breaking the rules of night travels.

“So, it is easier for us to monitor, to know where this is happening and be able to take critical steps.”

The LASWA GM added that the agency was carrying out an upgrade on its search and rescue activities.

“Following up to that, as we are upgrading our search and rescue unit, the other units that are not search and rescue are enforcement units so that in those axis like Ojo, Badagry and Ikorodu where we always have issues because there is a calm in the Island. The two upgrades are taking place in Ikorodu and the Ojo axis.

“So, these are the three critical things we are doing to ensure we are there. And of course, for the passengers, there is a lot of information we push across to them that if they see something, they should say something.

“We are about to install CRM on our waterways for passengers to report what they see and we will begin to treat them on a day-to-day basis as opposed to having sporadic comments here and there”, the LASWA boss concluded.