Enforcement of Cabotage Act will provide jobs for Nigerians – NIMASA

Temitope Adebayo

The Director of Maritime Labour and Cabotage at the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Mr. Gambo Ahmed, has said enforcement of the Cabotage Act is to provide jobs for Nigerians. The director, who represented NIMASA Director-General, Dakuku Peterside, at the investiture of Dr Bashir Jamoh as President of Chartered Institute of Transport Administration of Nigeria, spoke in Lagos on Wednesday, clarified that the agency was not clamping down on vessels, but rather “keying them” to ensure compliance. According to him, we have an army of trained, but unemployed seafarers that are supposed to be gainfully employed, while the foreign vessels plying Nigerian waters engage foreign sailors.
“The Cabotage Act has been there, the agency before now has embarked on sensitisation campaign to shippers and widow periods given, so with the end of the awareness period, enforcement is next”, Ahmed said. He said that on-board placement of the seafarers was just one aspect of the Cabotage law meant to create jobs for Nigerians in the sector. Ahmed said that other maritime countries had other forms of indigenous protective measure and Nigeria should not be an exception.