- To begin enforcement of 2007 Act
By Eromosele Abiodun
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) is intensifying efforts to enforce Sections 36 and 37 of the NIMASA Act 2007 with a view to curbing dominance of foreign owned and foreign crewed vessels in coastal shipping trade.
Director General of the agency, Dr Dakuku Peterside, who stated this in a chat with newsmen in Lagos, disclosed that the move is already at executive management level, pledging his determination to take it to the highest level of bureaucratic, legislative and executive engagements necessary.
He added that NIMASA shall also involve its esteemed stakeholders at the right time because they have roles to play in the entire process.
According to him, “We are poised, more than ever, to achieving this obligation. We understand it requires a great deal of capacity building, especially human, infrastructural and tonnage capacities of our indigenous shipping operators. We have reviewed the participation of Nigerians in the industry and are not satisfied with the outcome. The summary of our findings reveals a very low indigenous participation in international commercial shipping trade in Nigeria. As far-fetched as it sounds, there are no Nigerian Flagged Ocean-going vessels known to us.
“In the course of our review also, we observed the salience of cargo availability to the commercial fortunes of a ship-owner/operator and to our national tonnage growth. We noted also that commercial shipping will less likely develop without conscious, proactive, well-structured and monitored government intervention as is done in other sectors. One area of such intervention urgently needed is cargo availability.”
Peterside added: “Developed maritime nations have at one time or the other consciously supported, and is still supporting their indigenous operators in building their commercial shipping capacities. Recently, a bipartisan bill was brought before the US Congress aimed at strengthening indigenous participation in shipping. The Bill seeks to allow US flagged vessels carry up to 30 per cent of the US LNG as a matter of both economic importance and security concerns.
“On our part, plans are in top gear to use our existing enabling laws to make public cargo available for indigenous shipping operators in order to improve their commercial fortunes and competitive advantage over their well-capitalised and established foreign counterparts.”
He disclosed that the agency has commenced efforts to partner other African countries to sustain its drive to ensuring maritime security.
Specifically, he said: “The Regional Search And Rescue Committee which is made up of nine member countries under the Nigerian SAR Region, namely; Nigeria, Benin, Cameroon, Congo, D.R. Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Sao Tome & Principe and Togo was dormant. They never met to discuss modalities of collaboration for almost a decade. However, since this new management came on board, the Agency has successfully hosted two Sub-Regional Technical Committee meetings to build a formidable regional network.
“The Regional network has increased our level of alertness, thus improving our capacity to respond to distress calls, which has ultimately led to a considerable reduction in the cases of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea. Our quest to achieve a safer maritime domain has seen us working on an Anti-Piracy Bill. We have received the President’s backing to acquire assets that will be deployed at strategic locations, thus enhancing our ability to improve the safety of vessels within our maritime domain.”
He added: “Having realised the need to enhance the safety of boat users in Nigeria, we have secured the approval of the Honourable Minister of Transportation to increase the number of Search and Rescue Marshalls from 100 to 1000.”
Peterside also stated that the agency has intensified the drive to ensure strict compliance with the provisions of the ISPS Code.
“The result is that Nigeria has achieved a compliance rate of almost 80 per cent as 114 Port facilities out of the total 145 ports in Nigeria are now fully ISPS compliant. Let’s not forget that NIMASA was only appointed the Designated Authority for the implementation of ISPS Code in Nigeria barely five years ago when compliance level was barely13 per cent.
“Though 8 per cent of the remaining 31 Port Facilities are currently pursuing compliance, our goal is to target a 100 per cent compliance level within the next twelve months. Our efforts have attracted commendation from the United States Coast Guard team that visited Nigeria earlier this year”, he stressed.
