THE Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) says it will receive floating dockyards from Netherlands and Romania before the end of June.

Its Director-General, Dr Dakuku Peterside, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Thursday.

Peterside said that the aim was to save the country from the capital flights as a result of dry docking vessels outside the country.

According to him, NIMASA is building floating docks in Romania and Netherlands.

“The construction has reached an advanced stage and hopefully, the floating docks will be in Nigeria between May and June this year.

“Availability of the floating docks will save us capital flight because right now, most Nigerian vessels are dry-docked outside the country.

“The issue of dry docking vessels outside the country and loss of foreign exchange will soon be a thing of the past,” he said.

Peterside said that the floating docks would improve Nigerians’ skills in ship building, maintenance and create employment for many Nigerians.

The NIMASA director-general said that the agency had government’s approval to use 186 million dollars (more than N55 billion) to acquire maritime security assets.

He said that some of the assets had not been purchased. (NAN)

– Feb.  22, 2018 @ 14:45 GMT |