NiMET pledges commitment to improving infrastructure

Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET) has unveiled plans to execute projects worth N2billion in the marine sector.

The director general of the agency, Professor Mansur Matazu, said the project was geared towards improving the marine meteorological programs and activities.

Speaking with aviation journalists in Lagos, the NiMET DG while declaring that his management had made lots of progress in the marine forecasting services with the acquisition, and ready to install automatic weather display system along the coastal waters, equally hinted of the ongoing process of procuring marine ocean buoying for its six marine stations.

His words: “These projects have the potential to ward off the acquisition of such services from foreign providers, which is the prevailing practice, thus improving on the country’s security and strengthening its capacity to deliver in line with Local Content Act”.

The Director General equally pledged the agency’s commitment to improving infrastructure and equipment for weather observation and forecasting.

Speaking at the safety week organized by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN)  in Abuja, Matazu said the issue of climate change, climate variability and associated impacts had increased uncertainties around weather occurrences and their intensities.

According to Matazu, this had added to the need for the delivery of timely, accurate, and reliable aeronautical meteorological products and services, to ensure that the ever-increasing safety standards in the sector are not only met but continually maintained.

Matazu noted that governments and organisations worldwide were always working round the clock to ensure the safety of air operations across boundaries stressing that the Federal Government of Nigeria, through the Federal Ministry of Aviation, has at various points over the past years demonstrated its readiness to ensure that our nations aviation sector was safe and secure for stakeholders and passengers.

He said the approach by FAAN management, to cascade this year’s Safety Week events in order to ensure there was a buy-in of this laudable initiative, by all the internal and external stakeholders in the Aviation Industry was reminiscent of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency’s Seasonal Climate Prediction (SCP) downscaling initiative.

“In this initiative. the general SCP document is modified and spatially targeted to states and their entire Local Government Areas thereby making our predictions more impactful and further engendering ownership from the localities mapped. Events such as this are the right avenue to sensitize stakeholders and the general public on the New Normal: safety measures being championed by the Authority”.

YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

We Have Not Had Water Supply In Months ― Abeokuta Residents

In spite of the huge investment in the water sector by the government and international organisations, water scarcity has grown to become a perennial nightmare for residents of Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital. This report x-rays the lives and experiences of residents in getting clean, potable and affordable water amidst the surge of COVID-19 cases in the state.