Nigerian Ports not sanctioned by US - NIMASA

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has debunked claims that the United States Coast Guard (USCG) has sanctioned Nigeria over the non-compliant status of her ports with International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) code.

In its April 2019 Port Security Advisory (1-19), the US Coast Guard has listed some countries whose port facilities are non-compliant with the ISPS Code.

However, it listed 22 terminals in Nigeria as being excepted from the non-compliant list.

A highly placed source in NIMASA who craved for anonymity, explained that some people mis-interpreted the Advisory notice to mean that Nigeria was sanctioned.

According to him, the 22 terminals in Nigeria listed on the exception list are given clean bill of health by the USCG while it imposed what is called ‘condition of entry’ on the other terminals not captured on the exception list.

“We have over 100 terminals in Nigeria but when the US Coast Guard came to inspect the compliant level of our facilities, they only inspected those ones that ships come and go back to the USA, especially the off-shore terminals because of oil.

“It was these terminals they inspected and found compliant that they put on the exception list”, the source declared.

He claimed that the US inspection team is not interested in going to others, especially those that are in the Eastern ports because of the level of insecurity like kidnappings and armed banditry. .

“It was these terminals the USCG placed on condition of entry because their facilities were not inspected.

“What this simply means is that in addition to the existing minimum security measures at these facilities, extra measures should be put in place to scale up the security at the facilities.

“It was a misrepresentation of the fact that Nigeria was sanctioned”. Nigeria was not sanctioned”, the NIMASA official explained.

It was further gathered that even when the same USCG last year December, lauded NIMASA’s efforts at ensuring compliant status of the terminals which they gave 90 percent pass mark, these conditions of entry have always been there.

“It has always been there (conditions of entry) even when they (USCG) rated our terminals 90 per cent compliant. So it is not a new thing”, the official declared.

He claimed that even with the clean bill of health given to the 22 terminals on the exception list, NIMASA still often sanctions any of them that falls short of the Standard required by the agency.

“So the USCG endorsement is not a guarantee for escaping NIMASA hammer anytime any of them falls short of our standard”, the source declared.

The USCG has been issuing Port Security Advisory to Nigeria since 2012.

Our correspondent sighted the ones issued on 2012, 2015, 2017, 2018 and the current one of April, 2019.

In all of these, the numbers of terminals rated as ISPS Code compliant have been geometrically increasing to the present 22 terminals which was recorded in 2018 and 2019 report.