CAPACITY BUILDING: LAGFERRY HOLDS STAFF RETREAT 

The Lagos Ferry Services (LAGFERRY) has recently held a three-day Management Retreat at the Festival Hotel, FESTAC, Lagos, with the theme “Leveraging Waterways Assets for Improved Revenue Performance”. 

The event aimed to explore strategies for harnessing the economic potentials of Lagos waterways to boost revenue, promote sustainable practices, and contribute to the state’s economic growth.

In his keynote address, the Commissioner for Transportation, Mr. Oluwaseun Osiyemi charged the Agency to adequately utilise the assets it has to generate the revenue needed for the state, noting that the environment, ambience and efficiency of the agency’s boats were critical to driving more traffic to the ferries to increase ridership that would translate to enhanced revenue for the state government.

Osiyemi, who was represented at the event by Mr. Olawale Musa, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Transportation, added that the passenger experience is very important for people to want to come back to board LAGFERRY’s boats and so, every process of boarding the boats, from using the cowry cards to pay for the fare, to their experience inside the boat and disembarking must be memorable.

He said, “LAGFERRY’s focus would be to increase its ridership, remove more people from the road and channel the traffic down to the boats. This will not only ensure and sustain the multimodal transport integration but lead to improvement in revenue performance”.

Earlier in his welcome address, the Managing Director of LAGFERRY, Hon. Abdoulbaq Ladi Balogun, highlighted the agency’s achievements, including a significant increase in fleet size, routes, and passenger numbers. He emphasized the importance of leveraging waterways assets to improve revenue performance and contribute to the state’s economic growth.

“Lagos, as a coastal state in Nigeria, has the potential to leverage its maritime resources to benefit greatly from the potentials of the blue economy, estimated to be worth more than US$1.5 trillion per year globally. We must as an agency of government play a pivotal role in ensuring the Lagos state government explore this potentials for improved revenue”, he stated

The Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on Taxation and Revenue, who also doubled as a Guest Speaker, Mr. Abdulkabir Ogungbo, said that the world over, capacity building was to entrench processes, service delivery, and efficient and qualitative service for members of staff.

Ogungbo noted that after the retreat, it is expected that the users would have a better experience and a world-class service with LAGFERRY.

“We expect our people in the management retreat to put in practice all teachings ranging from encouraging players and managing expectations. We expect them to be more professional and discharge responsibilities that are assigned to them, he added.

He pointed out that the government was aware of LAGFERRY challenges, adding that the communique from the retreat would be presented to the Mr. Governor for his necessary attention.

In her goodwill message, Mrs. Adetutu Ososanya, Permanent Secretary, Parastatals Monitoring Office, Lagos State, said the essence of the capacity building was to enhance the performance of the workers of LAGFERRY.

In her words, “Our waterways transportation falls under the major pillar of government, which has to do with traffic management and transportation. and we all know how passionate our governor is about transportation services in Lagos State, to make it seamless”.