One hundrend and fourteen (114) Port facilities out of the total 145 ports in Nigeria are now fully compliant to International Ships and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS), Director General, Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr Dakuku Peterside has said
Speaking at a world press briefing in Lagos on Tuesday, Dakuku explained that NIMASA has intensified its drive to ensure strict compliance with the provisions of the ISPS Code.
He said: “The result is that Nigeria now has a compliance rate of almost 80% as 114 Port facilities out of the total 145 ports in Nigeria are now fully ISPS compliant. Let’s not forget that NIMASA was only appointed the Designated Authority for the implementation of ISPS Code in Nigeria barely 5 years ago when compliance level was barely 13%.
“Though 8% of the remaining 31 Port Facilities are currently pursuing compliance, our goal is to target a 100% compliance level within the next twelve months. Our efforts have attracted commendation from the United States Coast Guard team that visited Nigeria earlier this year”.
On surveillance and maritime domain awareness, Dakuku said: “On the subject of surveillance and maritime domain awareness, I am glad to inform you that NIMASA now operates a 24-hour surveillance system, which captures all vessels in the Nigerian Maritime domain irrespective of weather conditions.
“We can now achieve a complete profile analysis, which includes the Flag, Registered owner, Operator, Beneficial owner and movements over a specified period. This system enables us to take very swift decisions, in real time, on any targeted ship. Currently, all offshore areas of interest have been electronically cordoned off with a guard zone via our surveillance system and we can at once view live feed (activities) especially in the oil fields and on crude oil platforms.
“The system has not only greatly increased our capacity to block revenue leaks but has increased our revenue as all vessels coming into Nigeria are now captured and analyzed for billing.
“Furthermore, the current administration has been able to integrate surveillance data with billing control information thereby driving our desire for the Agency’s Billing System to be fully automated. This new innovation encourages seamless operations and has helped reduce billing operational time by two-thirds; from a whooping 72hrs down to 24hrs while keeping our eyes the target timeline of 6hrs billing”.
CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT:
“Conscious of our mandate: ‘to promote the development of indigenous commercial shipping in international and coastal shipping trade’, we are poised, more than ever, to achieving this obligation. We understand it requires a great deal of capacity building, especially human, infrastructural and tonnage capacities of our indigenous shipping operators.
“We have reviewed the participation of Nigerians in the industry and are not satisfied with the outcome. The summary of our findings reveals a very low indigenous participation in international commercial shipping trade in Nigeria. As far-fetched as it sounds, there are no Nigerian Flagged Ocean-going vessels known to us.
“In the course of our review also, we observed the salience of cargo availability to the commercial fortunes of a shipowner/operator and to our national tonnage growth. We noted also that commercial shipping will less likely develop without conscious, proactive, well structured and monitored government intervention as is done in other sectors.
“One area of such intervention urgently needed is cargo availability.
Developed maritime nations have at one time or the other consciously supported, and are still supporting, their indigenous operators in building their commercial shipping capacities. Recently, a bipartisan bill was brought before the US Congress aimed at strengthening indigenous participation in shipping. The Bill seeks to allow US flagged vessels carry up to 30% of the US LNG as a matter of both economic importance and security concerns.
“On our part, plans are in top gear to use our existing enabling laws to make public cargo available for indigenous shipping operators in order to improve their commercial fortunes and competitive advantage over their well capitalized and established foreign counterparts. We are out to enforce Sections 36 and 37 of the NIMASA Act 2007 towards building indigenous capacities in shipping. This is already at Executive Management level and we are determined to take it to the highest level of bureaucratic, legislative and executive engagements necessary. We shall also involve our esteemed stakeholders at the right time because we understand they have roles to play in the entire process”.
