NIMASA to undergo fresh restructuring next year- Peterside

In a bid to make the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) more productive, the Director General of the agency, Dakuku Peterside has stated that the agency will undergo an organizational restructuring next year.

This is even as he revealed that all hands must be on deck to ensure that the huge potentials in the industry are harnessed to get the country out of the current economic recession.

“Sometimes next year around April, we will be unveiling a new NIMASA brand, including a new logo, a new vision, and a new core values will be unveiled. We deliberately chose next year to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the fusion of NMA to form NIMASA.

That same April, we will be hosting the association of maritime agencies in Africa, all maritime agencies in Africa will be in Nigeria, and we will also have the honor of hosting the Secretary General of International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

“We also realized that a new structure needs to be in place if we are to realize the shared vision and our agreed objectives. Therefore, the other thing we need to do is to put in place a new organogram, so the Ministry of Transportation set up a intra-ministerial stakeholders committee to look at the current structure of NIMASA to see if there can be a convergence somewhere and we all agreed that a new structure should be put in place, the process requires that we get the approval of the Minister of Transportation and the Head of Service (HoS) who is the custodian of the civil service restructuring. That process is on.

We have gotten the approval of the Minister of Transportation; we are just waiting for the Head of Service so that we can get a new structure in place in NIMASA.

The NIMASA henchman also went on to lament the lack of a Nigerian flagged vessel to participate in the lifting of her petroleum products and other cargoes generated in the country.

“We are a great export nation, we export crude oil, agricultural products, we also import finished products it is painful that even with all our importing and exporting, yet no Nigerian vessel lifts any of our cargo both import and export.

I was looking at a recent statistics, in 2013; we had about 4000 Nigerians onboard cabotage vessels, this year, it has shrunk to about 1500, something is wrong somewhere, we have fewer Nigerians aboard cabotage vessels than what we used to have many years ago

In 2012, we built 88 boats in-country, this year we are building between two and five. So irrespective of the potentials, there are also challenges. Everywhere in the world, the maritime industry is the engine of the economy.

When it comes to cargo generations, apart from South Africa, we generate more cargoes than any country in Africa.

He also posited that instances of piracy in the gulf of Guinea has reduced drastically while commending the Nigerian Navy for the considerable reduction of criminal activities in the Nigerian territorial waters in the last three months.

He acknowledged the existing partnership with the Nigerian Navy which he said has been mutually beneficial and said that the memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two Agencies is currently being reviewed to make it more effective and beneficial to the entire maritime industry.

“I am confident that the strategies being put in place by the Nigerian Navy including the launch of the FALCON EYE and partnerships with relevant stakeholders will go a long way in addressing the security challenges in our waterways” the DG said.

He pledged the Agency’s continuous collaboration with the Nigerian Navy in the task of promoting a friendly environment for maritime activities in Nigeria.