From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), on Wednesday signed a two-year agreement with Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) to provide information and data to safeguard Nigeria inland waterways.
Speaking during the signing ceremony in Abuja, NIWA’s Managing Director, Chief George Moghalu, explained that the data and information about weather conditions from NiMet will help NIWA management to advise boat operators against putting their vessels in water during unfavourable weather conditions.
Similarly, the Managing Director of NiMet, Bako Mansur Matazu, said that apart from the two agencies ripping the mutual benefits of the agreement, it will soon translate into monetary benefits to the coffers of the government.
He said that NiMet has so much potentials in providing early warning to safeguard and reduce extreme weather conditions that can curse accident for boats and canoes.
Explaining how the agreement was struck between both agencies and what they stand to gain, Moghalu said: “In the course of our discussions and visitations, we agreed to work together because there is need for collaboration for the benefit of our people. A technical committee was set up to develop areas of mutual collaboration in sharing information and data that can be used to improve navigation in all our waterways.
“I am very confident that the partnership will work. The signing today has provided me with the opportunity to know the inner working of this agency particularly as it concerns the weather forecast information we see on television and how they are generated.
“It also gave us insight into how the collaboration will be beneficial to us in monitoring weather conditions especially now that we have hostile weather. The biggest takeaway is that we have the information to work with, which is the power we need. The data and information we need can help us advise our boat operators against putting their vessels in water when we have information about weather conditions.
“Interestingly, we have in-house weather department and by the time we collaborate on sharing information, we distribute it to our area offices and to our critical stakeholders to keep them informed. Basically, information is key and power,” Moghalu said.
On his part, NiMet boss, noted that; “We are really feeling fulfilled for conclusion of one of our core mandate of providing weather services especially for self navigation within Nigeria inland waterways. We have been doing this in 800 kilometres under NIMASA and NPA partnership for several years ago.
“We are now perfecting the water navigational system as we are doing in aviation. We want to continue that with NIWA. We have so much potentials in providing early warning to safeguard and reduce extreme weather conditions that can curse accident for boats and canoes.
The benefits of the agreement with NIMASA is that we have a lot of shipping activities for fisheries and movement of goods into the country. These shipowners collect information abinitio from other countries before coming to Nigeria. So, we have improved on our installations and services and signed agreement with NIMASA to provide marine services to these communities.
“We want to extend this experience with NIMASA to NIWA because we are so blessed with running waters, rivers and lakes, and as NIWA MD said, we have more than 24 jetties across the country and we are sure it will start to generate revenue to the country.
“The agreement is first to safeguard operations within the inland waterways and in the nearest future we can use the partnership to open a revenue stream for both agencies and into the national coffers for development,” he explained.