Captain Dada Olaniyi Labinjo is the President of the Nigerian Shipowners Association (NISA) , he spoke last week with Shipping Position Daily Assistant Editor; Dapo Olawuni on the challenges confronting the association, the giant strides it has taken so far, and the global challenges confronting seafarers.
We learnt you now have a functional secretariat
Captain Dada Olaniyi Labinjo is the President of the Nigerian Shipowners Association (NISA) , he spoke last week with Shipping Position Daily Assistant Editor; Dapo Olawuni on the challenges confronting the association, the giant strides it has taken so far, and the global challenges confronting seafarers.
We learnt you now have a functional secretariat
For 12 years we did not have a secretariat, but by 1st of January 2015, I was able to get a secretariat for us, it is a beautiful secretariat which we have already renovated, this was part of the promise I made during my campaign, I have a lot of jobs to do, I don't want to be distracted. We are very glad that NIMASA has provided us funds for furnishing and we are very grateful.
How much money did NIMASA support you with?
Don't let us go into that, even if it is one naira, I want you to rather look at the gesture, because there are people who thought that we have a bad relationship with NIMASA, but I promised during my election that I was going to work with NIMASA and we are working together. They promised us to cause all Nigerian shipping service users to engage Nigerian shipping service providers, by doing this we will get jobs, and this is what I have been looking for, to get jobs for my people, I am very focused. NIMASA is now telling foreigners to go and exhaust the services offered by Nigerian shipping service providers, so if you go there asking for waivers, they will ask you if you have exhausted Nigerian services. We recognise the need to get ships for our people and I am working very hard; the other time, I met with the Turkish Ship Owners Association and we had a very fruitful discussion on how we can collaborate. This time around we are putting together 2000 Greek shipowners and that is what I went to do in Greece, we will collaborate with them, they have the ships and we have the potentials, rather than them bringing their ships here and running into trouble, because they are not Cabotage vessel and they are constantly being detained, we decided to work together, we are not going to hold anything in trust for them, but we are going to work out what will be mutually beneficial in line with the provisions of the Cabotage. The greatest number of ships belongs to the Greeks, so we took the fight to them, and I can bet you that the Greek ambassador in Nigeria is very excited by it and he is looking forward to this mutually beneficial consideration. Also, the Nigerian ambassador to Greece is equally excited, I met him and told him my mission, my members need ships and I am going to make sure that this happens. Everything is not about money, under arrangement you can have all these ships, but it takes somebody who has a vision to be able to provide such quality leadership and that is exactly what I am going to do for my members.
As it stands, we gathered NIMAREX will be held with or without NISA, what is the situation now?
I don't know what you are talking about, I was the one that inaugurated the NIMAREX 2015 planning committee and I will always say it that the thanksgiving chairman cannot be bigger than the Pope, there is no friction between NIMAREX and NISA, NIMAREX is NISA's baby, so how can your baby decide to disown you, forget about all these issues, they are just distractions; the harvest committee chairman cannot be better than the Pope. NIMAREX will hold, the planning committee is there to plan and after they finished planning they will submit it to us, we will approve it and we will go ahead, that we have other stakeholders in the NIMAREX does not make it to stop being our brainchild. Can you imagine if we as shipowners all stand alone and we do not allow other stakeholders to be involved, can you imagine what will happen? People should stop all the thinking that NIMAREX is one body different from NISA; it is part of the products of NISA.
Single haul vessels will be phased out this year 2015, how ready are NISA members for this?
These are some of the very serious issues facing me right now because they affect my members that I am directing my attention to, and I must say that NIMASA is cooperating very well on this matter, we are discussing with them and we are getting very good reactions. The single haul phasing out will no longer be this year, we are discussing with them very seriously to give us some time, many of our tankers are single haul, these are more serious issues we should engage ourselves in rather than being distracted. I can assure you that we have the good understanding from NIMASA to extend it till later.
How much later? The IMO says phasing out is 2015
The same IMO resolution 13g also provided some leeway to the member states – that you can decide on when to start your own implementation, provided you are not leaving your country for another jurisdiction, if you leave Nigeria and get to Benin Republic, it must be double haul, but if our flag administration is generous enough to say that as long as you are working within our Cabotage area which is Lagos to Calabar, then you can continue to use your vessels, this is what we are clamouring for; for us to continue using our single haul vessels until we demolish them.
How much extension have you got from NIMASA?
We are talking to NIMASA but they have the final say, if you ask me how much time do I want, I may tell you 10 years or 20 years, a ship has a lifespan of 35 years, if you do the rebuilding, it can go on for 50 years; the ships that are going off now are the ones that are already 25 years old, so they don't have too many years to remain in operation. There is something called continuous assessment which IMO have also allowed flag states to put in place if they must extend the double hull policy, and as a ship owner, if you decide to do continuous assessment, it will become very unprofitable to you after some time.
The arrangement with the Greeks, are they single haul vessels?
No. I will be foolish to start having an arrangement that will involve single haul, we are still cooking it, but definitely they will be relatively new ships and we will good understanding with them.
Many states are yet to key into the NIMASA NSDP Programme, what do you think?
The NSDP is a programme open to all Nigerians and the states are encouraged to participate, they are to pay a percentage while NIMASA pays the rest, it is to make sure that the selection goes round Nigeria and it will not be only Niger Delta people that are in shipping. So if a state chooses not to participate, there is nothing anybody can do, it means they have not understood why their boys must be involved in shipping business. But tell me, those who have been in the programme, what have become of them? Which ships are they working on? There is something we failed to have shaped, the seafarers development programme is a very good one, every country develops a seafarer programme to catch the young ones and take them to sea, before they can become a seafarer they must finish all their training, that you go to Egypt, Greece, Philippines does not make you a seafarer yet, you have to come back and do your sea term. It is like a lawyer, if you don't go to law school you are not a lawyer, if you go to the university to read law, you will graduate with LLB Hons, but you are not yet a lawyer, it is when you go to the law school that you can become Barrister at law, same goes for seafarers. The basic training is just to prepare you, after this, you must go for the practical on ships, when you are done, you will now be given a Certificate of Competency for the year, with this you can work for sometime and you go back to school, learn a little bit more and go back to the panel where you will be given another Certificate of Competency, it is a continuous exercise, as I am talking to you, I am still learning, a seafarer is not somebody who goes to Oceanography for 18 months and begins to call himself a seafarer, they are new entrants that still have a long way to go, and as you are climbing up, you are always going back to school, for every climb up, you go back to school and come back, it is a lifelong thing. The problem we have with seafarers all over the world today is that technology has left seafarers behind, seafarers are not moving at the same pace with shipping technology and that is why we are having problems all over the world. The introduction of computer have not taken jobs off people, it has instead enhanced the performance of people's job, the kind of technology we see on ships today are very wonderful, and the seafarers are not catching up, this affects their marketability.
What is the way out?
What my administration is going to do is training of seafarers, on 28th and 29th of January, NISA organized a training programme; we recognize that ships generally carry Turbo chargers and we trained our members on these things affecting their jobs. In April, we are going to do another one because as a seafarer I know the problems and I will be liaising with the Original Equipment Manufacturers to update us on the aspect of their gadgets on the ships that we don't understand. Part of my assigned responsibility is to continue training seafarers, if we do this, our ships will have longer lifespan.
What is your advice on the NSDP programme?
On the NSDP, NIMASA should do more and the states should also do more, 20 years down the line, the states that do not queue into the programme will not have master mariners, and they will now be blaming themselves.
Do you think the certificates given to NSDP cadets are good enough to earn them jobs internationally?
It is very simple, that certificate is just the basic, nobody will employ them with basic certificates because they are not yet seafarers, but if they come and have their Certificate of Competency, there are some certificates that allows you to work only in Nigeria, there are some that allows you to work internationally, for you to have this, you need to go for more training.
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