Why Nigerian ship registry lost patronage - Dakuku

By Dapo Olawuni |

The Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) Dr. Dakuku Peterside has admitted past failures of the agency’s management to develop and maintain a viable ship registry in Nigeria.

Speaking with journalists on the sidelines of a ceremony to receive the report of a 9-man review committee on the ship registry in Apapa Lagos on Monday, Peterside admitted that the Nigerian ship registry collapsed over time due to negligence.

Some of the causes of the collapse according to him is lack of training for surveyors, lack of enforcement, as well as negligence in administrative style.

Peterside said “I think it is something that happened gradually overtime, we neglected the quality of training of our surveyors. We didn’t run the technology. We also neglected the enforcement aspect. you know one thing, negligence itself brings further negligence”

“If you do something and get away with it, nobody is there to ensure you are compliant, of course, it means you can do the other one and get away with it”

“And so, even from the point of administration, there have been negligence on our part and so, those who eventually got into the Nigerian flag can afford to neglect even the basis”

The NIMASA helmsman also highlighted neglect in terms of technical competence as responsible for the collapse of the ship registry.

He said

“We got it wrong by neglecting technical competence in terms of training the quality of our surveyors, in terms of deploying technology, efficiency and effectiveness in the Nigerian ship registry itself and in terms of quality personnel managing the Nigerian ship registry and our response capacity and time to incidence”

Peterside however assured that the report of the 9-man committee set up by the agency in February 2018 has attempted to change the way of doing things in the Nigerian Shipping sector.

With the report, Peterside said “We are expecting to see the Nigerian ship registry that is respected across the globe, attractive to ship owners, that responsive to the yearning of ship owners”

“The second one is operational, we are expecting to see Nigerian ship registry that is efficient, effective and responsive to change and the other one is that we are expecting to see the Nigerian ship registry that is automated and meet international standards satisfaction and in the next few hours or days, we are expect to see implementation committee that would follow through to ensure that every single recommendation is implemented to the later”

“From next year we expect a vibrant, effective and vibrant of Nigerian ship registry” he assured