Peterside, DG NIMASA

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency NIMASA, has said it is more than ever before committed to repositioning the the nation’s maritime industry to enhance its viability with a view to attracting both domestic and foreign direct investments FDI, needed to grow the industry.

NIMASA is currently working on a medium term development programme covering 2016 to 2019 under its core mandate through which it projects to enhance efficient service delivery and by so doing make the industry competitive.

Director General of the Dr. Dakuku Peterside, who gave this assurance in Lagos at the weekend during the investiture of Mr. Andrew Isichei as the President of the Nigerian Chamber of Shipping NCS and the inauguration of the governing council of the chambers.

According to him, in line with the mandate of the agency in terms of promoting shipping development and related activities in Nigeria, NIMASA will do everything within its powers to enhance the viability of the industry, which will go a long way in attracting the much needed local and foreign investments.

He said: “We are leaving no stone unturned in advancing Nigeria’s global maritime goals. The vast maritime opportunities that are abound in the country need to be harnessed especially as the present administration under President Muhammadu Buhari strives to diversify the economy. We will ensure that our maritime domain becomes more virile and attractive to you stakeholders and other industry players to further build your confidence to invest in the maritime industry”.

The DG, who was represented by the agency’s Executive Director in charge of Finance and Administration, Mr. Bashir Jamoh stated that NIMASA under his watch is doing everything humanly possible to ensure that the industry remains viable, and most importantly help build stakeholders’ confidence at all times.

He also disclosed that the agency is taking some giant strides to ensure safety and security in the maritime domain, adding that the NIMASA’s 24-hour surveillance system is capable of monitoring and spotting all illegal activities on the waterways.

It was also gathered that owing to the agency’s strict implementation of the International Ships and Port Facility Security ISPS Code in Nigeria, the ports and terminals are now safer and more reliable to do business.

This development has helped to shore up the compliance level of the code in the country to be over 80 per cent presently as against that of about 13 per cent when NIMASA took over as the Designated Authority DA.

Peterside howver said that the hosting of Heads of African Maritime Administration Conference in Abuja recently was to further open more channels of maritime businesses between the Nigerian investors and their foreign counterparts.

“Our hosting of African Heads of Maritime Administrations AAMA in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city was intended to give you stakeholders a platform to interact with their contemporaries around the world in order to open more maritime opportunities for them to ensure that some useful se who were able to find time to be with us in Abuja for the event, I am quite confident that some useful contacts and engagements were made towards harnessing the various hitherto untapped opportunities” the DG said.

The new President of the chamber, Mr. Isichei commended NIMASA for driving the process of repositioning the maritime industry.

“I would like to commend NIMASA for making valuable efforts towards repositioning the Nigerian maritime industry, the agency recent hosted the AAMA Conference in which regional maritime security issues were at the front burner. We will continue to support NIMASA in working with our neighbouring countries to ensure that issues of Piracy and other maritime related crimes at Sea become a thing of the past”, Isichei said.