The Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dakuku Peterside, has restated that the agency is committed to ensuring the viability of the maritime sector to encourage domestic and foreign investors in Nigeria’s maritime industry.

He made this known at the weekend, at the investiture of Mr. Andrew Isichei as the President of the Nigerian Chamber of Shipping (NCS) and the inauguration of the members of the NCS Governing Council.

The NIMASA DG, who was represented by the Agency’s Executive Director, Finance and Administration, Mr. Bashir Jamoh, stated that NIMASA under the leadership of Dr. Peterside is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that the sector remains viable, and most importantly help build stakeholders’ confidence in investing in the industry.

According to him, “In line with our mandate of promoting shipping and related activities in Nigeria, we are leaving no stone unturned in advancing Nigeria’s global maritime goals. The vast maritime opportunities that 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 sector.”

Paterside also reeled out the strides the Agency is making to ensure safety and security in the maritime space adding that the NIMASA 24-Hour Surveillance system is capable of monitoring and spotting all illegal activities on the waterways. He also said that owing to NIMASA’s 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, adding that the compliance level of the code in the country have been adjudged to be over 80 per cent from the about 13 percent it was when NIMASA took over as the Designated Authority.

Consequently, the NIMASA DG 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 counterpart.

“Our hosting of African Heads of Maritime Administrations (AAMA) in Nigeria was intended to give you stakeholders a platform to interact with your contemporaries around the world in order to open more maritime opportunities for you, for those 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,” he said.

In his speech, the new President of NCS, Mr. Isichei, commended the Agency for driving the process of repositioning the maritime sector.

His words: “I will like to commend NIMASA for making valuable efforts towards repositioning the Nigerian Maritime Industry. Recently NIMASA 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.”

•Photo shows, L-R; Executive Secretary, Nigerian Shippers’ Council, Barr. Hassan Bello; Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority, Hadiza Bala Usman; Executive Director, Finance and Admin, NIMASA, Bashir Yusuf Jamoh; and Mrs Ify Anazonwu-Akerele, member, NCS . . . at the investiture ceremony of the new President of NCS in Lagos.

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