The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Maritime and Ports Authority of Singapore have held a bilateral meeting to seek areas of collaboration between the two maritime regulators at the sidelines of the Maritime Regulators Forum holding in Singapore.

The Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, met with his counterpart at the Maritime and Ports Authority (MPA) of Singapore, Mr. Andrew Tan, where they pledged to collaborate for the benefit of both countries.

Dr. Peterside, who told Mr. Tan that Nigeria has huge maritime potentials that have remained untapped, also called on Singapore investors to take advantage of the reforms in Nigeria’s maritime sector to invest in the country.

He also requested partnership with the Singaporean authorities in various areas including technology acquisition for monitoring of the waterways, capacity building of personnel, support to upgrade maritime infrastructure a well as acquisition of more ocean going vessels for indigenous operators.

Dr. Peterside assured Singaporean investors and indeed the global community of NIMASA’s commitment to focus on effective enforcement of all IMO instruments for which Nigeria is a signatory as well as build the requisite capacity of personnel and infrastructure for the execution of its mandate saying clean and safe oceans and security of ships operating in Nigerian waters remain a top priority.

In his comments, Mr. Andrew Tan described Nigeria as the new destination for future maritime investments. He expressed surprise that there was no institutional relationship between Nigeria and Singapore despite the fact that Singapore is the second busiest and first trans-shipment port in the world and Nigeria a major maritime hub in West and central Africa.

The MPA Chief Executive further suggested that Nigeria can benefit from Singapore’s well developed and excess maritime capacity while Singapore can benefit from Nigeria’s huge market.

He therefore invited NIMASA to take advantage of the several programmes available in MPA Academy of Singapore to build capacity of its personnel while also leveraging on Singapore’s ship building and maintenance expertise to get many Nigeria maritime players own their own vessels. Mr Tan also suggested a new level of cooperation between the two parties at IMO meetings.

The DG of NIMASA, who is in Singapore at the invitation of MPA of Singapore, is scheduled to address the Forum of Maritime Regulators on “Indispensible Shipping: Meeting the Regulatory Requirements” at the on-going Singapore Maritime Week.

Update news