The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) on Monday handed over three ventilators and other items to the Lagos State Government to help contain spread of Coronavirus.
Handing over the items, the Director General of NIMASA, Dr Bashir Jamoh, explained that N20 million of the N50 million donation by the agency would go to Lagos State while the remaining N30 million to Abuja, adding that the Federal Government had approved five stadia to tackle the coronavirus challenge.
He said: “As an agency, NIMASA, is working hard both with the internal and external stakeholders to fashion out strategic effort that will be put in place to fight the Coronavirus menace.
“We are here to flag off the distribution of some of the items and materials that will be used in this fight.
“We have ventilators and testing materials, ambulance, fire brigade machines to be used to spray chemicals to reduce the spread of the virus.
“Others items donated are 36-sitter bus, 16-sitter bus, oxygen concentrator, personal protective equipment, hand santisers and also there will be handy volunteers to work with the government and experts that will use the fire engine machines.”
Jamoh explained that as a regulatory agency, NIMASA was concerned about the country coastal communities.
“we are taking their issues very serious.
“We are trying to look at those in the interland who constantly interact with NIMASA, as they are prone to getting this virus, through the waterways and with the fast intervention vessels would be able to get to them.
“We decided to give these donations to all our landlords wherever we operate, the Western Zone which is Lagos, Eastern Zone- Port Harcourt, and in Central Zone we have Warri and Calabar.
`All the six geo-political zone will benefit from it.
“The zones are Maiduguri for North East; Kaduna for North West, Kwara for North Central, Anambra for South East and also Abuja,” Jamoh said.
He also commended the Lagos State Government for effort taken so far in contain of the spread of the virus.
“The state governments donations in terms of food, giving information and update on the day to day basis on COVID-19 is commendable.
“We want to also appreciate the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) for their effort in terms of sensitising the public, we feel that Nigerians owe it a duty by abiding by rules and guidelines of staying at home,” he said.
In his response, Mr Rabiu Olowo, Lagos State Commissioner for Finance explained that the goodwill from NIMASA was most appreciated by the governor and the people of the state.
“As you are all aware Lagos State is the epic center of of this pandemic that everyone is fighting across the globe.
“We have seen the response of the state to this and the true leadership of Mr governor to fighting this.
“So this donation will go a long way in supporting and complementing the state effort towards fighting the pandemic.nan
