NIMASA supports proper waste management in Lagos

… Donates safety kits to LAWMA

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has donated safety kits and waste management equipment to the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) to boost the government’s efforts at keeping the environment clean.

The safety items include 600 branded coveralls, 600 pieces of traffic cones, and 600 nose masks that would not only enable proper waste management but also avert incidences of dumping of refuse into the lagoon, which threatens safe shipping.

Speaking in Lagos on Friday at the official presentation of the items to the management of LAWMA, Olamide Odunsanya, director of Internal Audit at NIMASA, said the donation was in line with the agency’s robust Corporate Social Responsibility support system.

Represented, by Samuel Muyiwa, deputy director of Internal Audit, Odusanya said NIMASA’s CSR programmes are mostly environmentally- based and designed to address social needs.

According to her, only cleaner environments will translate into cleaner oceans in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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Describing Bashir Jamoh, director general of the agency as a maritime administrator who believes in the promotion of safety and security, peace, and progress in the maritime domain, she said Jamoh has a three-point agenda that focuses on Maritime Safety, Maritime Security, and Shipping Development.

“We are reaching out and supporting government and Lagosians in the face of daunting socio-economic circumstances that often beat the government’s official planning and require extra-governmental measures and intervention from socially responsible organisations and well-meaning individuals. NIMASA understands that government as a system cannot achieve anything alone. It needs the support of all to make the society a better place.

“This is why we want to raise awareness about the need to keep Lagos clean, to provoke attention at all levels on the need to ensure a healthy environment because a clean environment translates to a clean ocean, which is why supporting proper waste management within the physical environmental ecosystem is part of our policy thrust,” she said.

Receiving the items, Muyiwa Gbadegesin, managing director of LAWMA, expressed appreciation to the agency, adding that LAWMA has a team that cleans the waterfront and the oceanfront.

Gbadegesin said that NIMASA’s responsibility partly covers environmental management, which is a shared objective with the LAWMA, especially in terms of maintaining the cleanliness of oceans and waterway, adding that some of the plastic wastes generated on land still find their way into the oceans if not properly managed.

He said the lasting solution is to build a system where people are discouraged from dumping waste in the ocean because the ocean is an important asset that must be protected to build a marine economy.

While pledging that the items would be optimally deployed for the benefit of the Nigerians, he said there was a need for more collaboration between both organisations in line with the initiative to rid the city of waste.