NIMASA Expresses Concerns over High Rate of Piracy on Nigeria Water

ABIOLA Seun |

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), has expressed concern over rising cases of piracy on the nation’s waterways.

The concern was expressed by the Director General of the agency, Dr Dakuku Peterside in an interactive session with journalists in Lagos on Wednesday.

Peterside, who acknowledged that the primary responsibility of the agency was to ensure that vessels that call at the nation’s seaports are safe, assured stakeholders that piracy would be fought to barest minimum in the next four months.

“We are concerned about cases of piracy within our waterways, but, NIMASA working through the maritime command has improved and increased surveillance within our waterways. We are working with our partners in the Nigerian Navy who have designed a number of special programmes to patrol waterways especially in the Niger-Delta.

“We have also reactivated our maritime domain awareness, our satellite view which give us the view of the entire maritime space, the challenge is building the capacity to respond, but today when you come to NIMASA you will see all that is going on within our maritime space. We are working very hard to build capacity and we will acquire fast intervention vessels, fast intervention or maritime security helicopter or even special mission aircraft.

“We are working closely to train a new set of military men because we are not allowed to bear arms, and retrain them on maritime security, surveillance in particular, and we hope that in the next four months, we will see lot of changes in maritime security. We are working hard to reduce piracy to the barest minimum on the number of pirate cases on our waterways” he said.

Speaking on the compliance of International Ships and Ports Security Code (ISPS) code, he stated that the agency has recorded 80 percent compliance.

“The primary responsibility of NIMASA is to ensure ships calling at our ports are safe and secured. We do under two principal programmes, ISPS code programme and NIMASA maritime security strategy, i.e. the total spectrum of maritime security strategy, but what we are doing is that we have grown compliance from 13 percent at various times to 80 percent. We also ensure port facilities adhere to ISPs code, and we have been commended by Department of Transport of United Kingdom and United State Coast Guard. We have received commendation from these two major international partners” Peterside added.

However, vessels operating in the nation’s Cabotage trade had increased by 33 percent in the last six months.

Peterside said a total of 125 vessels owned by Nigerians were registered by the agency between January to June, 2018.

The Director General attributed the growth to increase in activities at the oil and gas sector and related sector.

In his words: “Within the period, 125 vessels have been registered under our cabotage register, representing 33% increase because there have been upward swing in activities in the oil and gas industry and related industry, we have more vessels supporting their activities, we have 33% within the period under review. 125 vessels registered under our cabotage registry are owned by Nigerians, almost all are owned by Nigerians and so we are fulfilling our mandate of giving Nigerians the enablement of taking charge of cabotage within our coastal waters.”

He further disclosed that the agency’s zero tolerance for manning waiver have contributed to the increase in the number of Nigerians on board cabotage vessels, while adding that about 1,685 tanker operation were captured in the month under review.

Said he: “In the last six months, a total of 1,685 tanker operations were captured by the Satellite Surveillance System. Of these operations, 284 were carried out at the anchorage area through lightering. Effectively, through surveillance guided enforcement operations, the 284 tankers that were lightened at the anchorage were hindered from participating in Cabotage Operations.

“This has impacted positively on Cabotage trade creating room for more local participation. This was not the case in 2017 when we could not separate between anchorage operations and Cabotage trade with high likelihood of 532 international vessels proceeding on Cabotage trade after lightering operations at the anchorage.

“In terms of cabotage trade, there is increase in number of Nigerians on-board cabotage vessels because of our introduction of new cabotage compliance strategy where there is zero tolerance for granting of manning waivers.

“And because of zero tolerance for granting manning waivers, the number of Nigerian seafarers placed on-board from January to June 2018 has risen to 2,337, representing 58.9 percent increase. In the past six months, 2,337 seafarers has been placed on-board cabotage vessels and we can give names of vessel’s and seafarers.

“And that represent 58.9% increase in number of Nigerians on board Cabotage vessels within our country. In terms of shipping development, NIMASA has a mandate of reviewing time to time bench mark, the freight benchmark, but things are changing everywhere shippers call for review, no one gives priority but, between the period under review, NIMASA has reviewed 3 percent and it was done based on request by operators, and this is to provide conducive environment for investment to grow.

“We have done intervention with CBN for a special interest rate. It is a major accomplishment between the periods under review. Before now, the national economic management team didn’t make the maritime sector a priority sector but that has changed. We recently have an engagement with the VP, and we provided statistics and we agreed that maritime should be considered a priority sector of the economy because of capacity to generate employment and for growth. We engaged with CBN for a special interest rate for those acquiring vessels and those investing in the sector. I can tell you that CBN is working with us to review the policy and interest rate for those who operate in the maritime sector.”

He also disclosed further that the Agency secured the reactivation of the maritime domain awareness capability to enforce regulations.

“The re-activation of the maritime domain awareness has enabled effective enforcement of regulations. Our surveillance system enables us to ensure the preservation of Cabotage Trade for indigenous operators by identifying and differentiating Ship-To-Ship (STS) operations that take place at the secured anchorage and offshore locations from Cabotage Trade to avoid foreign domination in Cabotage trade under the guise of STS.”

“The Agency has been able to establish a satellite surveillance control and command center that has coverage of up to 312 nautical miles from coast line (approximately 100 nautical miles off our EEZ). The system can detect vessels with AIS transporters switched off as a synthetic aperture raider (SAR images which can be interrogated) immediately by near – point of sight patrol/enforcement boats” Peterside stated.