Echoes of change rocks maritime adminstration agency

When the Federal Government introduced the ‘change’ mantra to the maritime sector, the first point of focus was the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), which was engulfed in series of corrupt practices before coming into power of this political dispensation.

Indeed, the revelations emanating from the court cases are pointing at one singular thing, which is the need for complete overhaul of the maritime watchdog.Stakeholders have therefore stressed the need to rebrand the agency in other to align it with other foremost maritime administrators in the world. In view of this, the Director General, NIMASA, Dakuku Peterside has conceptualised a rebranding mechanism to inject a breath of fresh air to the NIMASA brand.

The new brand would be unveiled by President Muhammadu Buhari on the 22nd of April which coincides with the hosting of Association of African Maritime Administration (AAMA).
AAMA is another platform to reposition Nigeria for international maritime politics. Nigeria has been out of Council at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) for over half a decade, thus relegating the country at international politics in the maritime sector.

The Heads of African Maritime Administration have agreed to converge in Abuja in April for the third AAMA conference, a move which would further reposition the Nigerian maritime sector and make it a global voice again.

Besides the immediate benefits of having maritime stakeholders across the globe converge in Nigeria, this will go a long way to enhance the chances of Nigeria to return to Council at IMO at the Category C level. The Dakuku led management has gotten presidential approval to seek election in to the category C of the IMO council. With these Nigerian Maritime sector will be repositioned to take its lead in the comity of maritime nations.

This is coming as the race and strategies to reform NIMASA heighten. Peterside had announced a medium term strategic growth plan covering three years and built around his core mission at NIMASA, which is to “Reform, Restructure and Reposition” the agency for sustainable growth and development of the maritime industry.

The strategy document is built on five pillars including Survey, Inspection and Certification Transformation programme; Environment, Security and Search and Rescue Transformation programme; as well as Capacity Building and Promotional Initiatives which entail growing indigenous tonnage, ship building and human capacity. 

Others are Digital Transformation Strategy; and Structural and Cultural reforms including changes to work ethic and attitude of staff as well as processes and procedures. A maritime expert, Capt Adams Imore said that the agency is putting some golden touch in certain industry challenges particularly in the area of training and safety, but noted that many more areas are still left untouched.

According to him, one year is not enough to transform the entire maritime sector, but operators are hopeful that the management would be able to take the industry to promised land with good policy initiatives that would enhance safe operations and promote indigenous participation in the sector.

Imore emphasized the need for NIMASA to disburse the $100 million Cabotage Vessel Finance Fund (CVFF) to help grow the capacity of indigenous ship owners’ intention and provide the needed capital for them to acquire vessels.

The President of the Association of Marine Engineers and Surveyors (AMES), Engr. Charles Uwadia commended the NIMASA’s administration on its strides in getting the maritime sector to the right path applauded its policies towards raising the international profile of the country in the comity of nations.

Before now, most operations at the agency are centralized whereby sailing certificates, payment of bills by stakeholders were coordinated completely from the Head office. This was considered cumbersome, leading to loss of valuable business time thus less productivity. The new management, after about one year in office is implementing a framework that will see more powers devolved to the zones. Preparatory to this, most zones are now headed by substantive directors. This, according to the DG would ensure that more responsibilities and authority are devolved to the zones thus reducing time of processing and improving efficiency.

It is widely believed that in this era of online communication, a semi autonomous zonal structure will surely enhance the operation of the agency. The Board of Director’s recently approved the construction of new offices at the Port Harcourt at the Eastern Zone as well as Warri in the central zone.

In this information driven age, access to information definitely enhance operations of any maritime administration. The NIMASA management has upgraded Nigeria’s subscription of the Lloyds list intelligence to a full bouquet which is beyond the previous capacity of the sea searcher and this now guarantee unfettered access to current data in the maritime industry. This has improved on the volume and value of data available to Nigerian maritime stakeholders.

Meanwhile, safety at the ports and Nigeria’s compliance level with the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code receives commendation as the US Coast Guard visited the country to ascertain the level of security at the Nigerian Ports.

The leader of the United States Coast Guard delegation, Commander Thomas Foster, commended the agency for the giant strides in ensuring safety at the ports and expressed satisfaction with the infrastructural development as regarding ISPS Code implementation in the ports visited in Lagos.

He said: “It appears that the energy that NIMASA has at the ports is very tremendous, as seen in all the ports visited in Lagos. The level of compliance has tremendously improved compared to our last visit. I therefore assure NIMASA that we will continue to work closely to achieve a safer ports, jetties and terminals in Nigeria”.

The agency also recently struck a new partnership with the South Shield Marine School at the South Tyneside College, South Shield, Newcastle in the United Kingdom, to provide sea time opportunities for about 400 cadets of the agency’s sponsored Nigerian Seafarers Development Program (NSDP).

The Principal / Head of the school, Gary Hindmarch ranked the Nigerian trainees above other nationals in the course: “The Nigerians are good students who are very committed to their studies, with great performance, which they have maintained for over five years since they have been at this institution. If there was to be a league table for the academic performance here, the Nigerian students would be top of the table for five years above other nationals studying in the Maritime School”.