The Lagos state government has expressed its commitment to improve the revenue and efficiency of the Lagos State Ferry Service (LAGFERRY).

Oluwaseun Osiyemi, the Lagos state commissioner for transportation, said this at a three-day management retreat of LAGFERRY on Saturday in Lagos.

Mr Osiyemi was represented at the event by Olawale Musa, the permanent secretary, ministry of transportation.

The theme of the retreat was: “Leveraging Waterways Assets for Improved Revenue Performance.”

Mr Osiyemi said the environment, ambience and the efficiency of the boats were critical to driving more traffic to the ferries to increase ridership that would translate to enhanced revenue for the state.

“Passenger experience is very important for people who want to come back to board our boats and so, we need to ensure that everything works for us.

“We can have 17 boats but we need to relate it to how many people ride on the boats, the daily trips.

“We need to adequately utilise the assets we have to generate the revenue needed in the state,” he said.

Mr Osiyemi said that Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu was integrating all the modes of transportation in the state to ensure smooth flow of traffic.

He noted that the integration would enable the government to free up the road to reduce man-hour wasted in traffic.

Mr Osiyemi said that LAGFERRY focus would be to increase its ridership, remove people from the road and drive the traffic down to the boats.

Speaking on the integration of jetties for seamless movement, he said that this required a multi-sectoral approach.

“For instance, the ministry of transportation does not construct roads, that task resides with the ministry of works and Infrastructure.

“All these things cost and it will be a collaboration of all stakeholders to ensure that one can get to the jetties to board the ferry,” he said.

Abdulkadir Ogungbo, special adviser to the Lagos state governor on taxation and revenue, said that world over, capacity building was to entrench processes, service delivery, efficient and qualitative service to members of staff.

Mr Ogungbo noted that after the retreat, it was expected that team users had a better experience, a world class service with LAGFERRY.

“We expect our people in the management retreat to put in practice all teachings ranging from encouraging players, managing expectations, putting security first before personal gains.

“We expect them to be more professional and discharge responsibilities that are assigned to them and the first thing is that we will continue to integrate ideas with them,” he said.

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

Also speaking, 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.

“From the theme’s perspective, how to leverage on revenue performance through our waterways services, this falls under the major pillar of government which has to do with traffic management and transportation.

“Our waterways transportation falls under this and we all know how passionate our governor is about transportation services in Lagos State, to make it seamless.

“In putting all these together, we are looking at how to work and serve customers better, make them feel safe on the waterways.

“Look into our tourism activities and go as far as West African coast. Its all about making things better and enhancing our revenue drive through our waterways services,” she said.

Elsie Egwuatu, head of marine department, National Inland Waterways Authority, commended LAGFERRY leadership for the retreat, added that this was a way of drawing out the positive aspect of the staff.

“Knowledge is inexhaustible and we must imbibe the financial knowledge to move forward,” she said.

Earlier, Abdoulbaq Balogun, managing director/chief executive officer, LAGFERRY, said that the agency would continuously evolve in its dynamism for efficient and effective service delivery.

He said that the agency recently had Fuji Fusion, a musical concert on the waterways, the first of its kind in the country.

“The question is how do we monetise this initiative to bring in more money to the organisers, private collaborators and government?

“These are the things we need to look into, not just the traditional way of generating revenue, we need to think deeply, creatively and deliver innovative initiative so that we can bring more revenue to the purse of the Lagos State government,” he said.

Mr Balogun pointed out that two days ago, Lagos Revenue Portal was inaugurated, adding that what it connote was that revenue generation had changed as there was no where to hide again.

“We have to block all the loopholes, LAGFERRY is well positioned and we are a revenue generating agency, so we are here for serious business.

“We should know why revenue of LAGFERRY is going down south and we need to make a way,” he said.

 (NAN)