Abuja — It has also regretted that inadequate funding and irregular power supply have always frustrated its attempt to turn the Dockyard in Apapa into a commercial entity.

The warship, still under construction at its Apapa base will be completed soon.

General Manager, Naval Dockyard, Commodore A. B. Nuafa, made this known while taking journalists covering the House of Representatives round the dockyard in Lagos.

He said the premier docking facilities in the country was already addressing some of the problems through its partnership with Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA).

He said the dockyard needs adequate funding to function well and generate revenue for the country as a commercial outfit, revealing that many of the company's equipment in the various workshops were going bad.

According to him, "Most of the equipment are degrading". He disclosed that the big generating sets ordered by the management to compliment electricity supply would enter the country very soon.

Nuafa, who refused to disclose how much the dockyard was generating , merely said it was not enough to assist its operations, stressing that the potential of the dockyard were well known, even by other countries and investors who had shown interest in acquiring it.

He, however, explained that it was not possible to privatise the dockyard and allow outside interests, given the strategic position it occupies in the security of the country.

Nuafa said the attraction for the dockyard arose because of the nature of its clientele, disclosing that besides the need to attend to repairs and fix vessels belonging to the Nigerian Navy, the dockyard also attracted vessels from private concerns for repairs.

"It is a premier docking facility established to dock and repair naval vessels. We are commercialised because we attend to private vessels.

"We have made arrangements to dock two naval vessels but we have problems of alignment and we are waiting for experts", he said.