BusinessDay... the voice of business: NIMASAs poor ship funding as bane to maritime sector

NIMASAs poor ship funding as bane to maritime sector
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CLIFF ALOZIE-ERONDU on 01 May, 2008 02:00:00
 
Issues such as manpower development and increasing capacity in the shipping
sector have remained unattended to.
The management of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency
(NIMASA) has at different occasions, promised to train seafarers to equip them
for international jobs. However, that seems to be a mirage because foreigners
still dominate the country’s waters.
The maritime apex body earlier last year, got accreditation for the Seafarers
Identification Document (SID), which will enable it source employment anywhere
in the world, but till date, most of these workers are still out of jobs.
Coversely, countries like Philippines earn over four billion dollars annually
through its seafarers.
Responding to poor manpower development, Adewale Ishola, president, Master
Mariners Association of Nigeria, said Nigeria did not have up to 200 master
mariners either dead or alive because NIMASA had failed to train cadets since
1987 when the agency was set up.  This poor attitude to training had led to
dearth of manpower development, he stated. He said training as far as the
maritime industry was concerned in Nigeria, stopped with the liquidation of the
Nigerian National Shipping Line (NNSL) in 1995 and this had created a yawning
gap as younger ones were not being groomed to take over from the ageing
generation.
Two years ago, NIMASA sacked its surveyors only to realise that there were no
trained ones to fill the gap.  The organisation had to recall the retrenched
surveyors to work as contract staff.  However, this could be avoided if the
maritime agency had been carrying out its responsibilities since inception. 
Sadly, it takes over 10 years to train a surveyor, which means that important
jobs in the sector have to wait for such period of time when new sets of people
will graduate.
In 2004, the former director-general of the defunct National Maritime
Authority, Ferdinand Agu, sent 30 cadets to Malaysia because there were no ships
in the country to give them the necessary sea training.  Four years after,
nothing much has been heard of such training, yet so many cadets pass out from
the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) Oron, in Akwa Ibom State.
Recently, the present management of NIMASA said the organisation had set aside
some funds in support of Cabotage law (Coastal and Inland Shipping), but only a
handful of operators in the industry could access it.  According to a maritime
lawyer, Jean Anishere, her client had not been able to access the fund six
months after a written application had been made to the organisation.
She said that such development was hindering growth in the industry.  Even if
those who borrowed from the Ship Acquisition and Ship Building Fund (SASBF)
defaulted, that was not enough reasons to deny others their opportunity she
explained.
It is true that the agency is bringing in a boat of about N2 billion ($18
million) and a helicopter designed to check the activities of pirates in the
country’s territorial waters. However, the maritime apex body should not lose
focus of ensuring adequate manpower development and capacity building in terms
of funding those who want to venture into shipping business.