The House of Representatives has finally passed the Chartered Institute of Shipping of Nigeria (CISN) Bill, raising hopes that the legislature may still pass the remaining three bills before the end of the current legislative calendar.
The CISN Bill which is the least controversial of the outstanding four maritime sector-related bills which are currently at different stages of legislative process, however scaled through last week after the lower legislative chamber had earlier raised some questions.
Our correspondent confirmed that were it not for the timely response of the committee which was jointly constituted by both the Nigerian Institute of Shipping (NIS) and the Certified Institute of Shipping (CIS), the bill might not have scaled through.
A delegation from the two institutes, led by NIS fist vice president and former director general, National Maritime Authourity (NMA), Mr John Patrick Egesi reportedly quickly left for Abuja to meet with the House committee on marine transport to proffer answers to questions which the bill elicited at plenary about two weeks ago.
And expectedly, the news of the passage is already generating positive comments from stakeholders who commended the legislature for giving the maritime industry “this end-of-the-year gift”.
National president, Nigerian Institute of Shipping, Chief Caleb Okoye was full of appreciation to the law makers for finally seeing reason why the bill must be passed.
“We were worried but at the same time optimistic that the bill will scale through, and we hope that the Senate will also give it a timely concurrent passage. It is not a harmful bill, by that I mean that, the intent and purpose of the bill is to correct anomalies in manpower development, training and retraining in the maritime industry”, he said last weekend.
Speaking in the same vein, Mr Egesi expressed optimism that the bill will change a lot of things, adding that “we are very delighted with the news and we appreciate the promoter of the bill and all those who contributed to the process that led to the bill’s passage”.
“We need to have this chartered body, you must understand shipping to practice shipping, we have got it wrong for a long time, but now, this bill will facilitate the process of correcting the anomalies of the past”, he stressed.
Similarly, the registrar, Certified Institute of Shipping, Dr Alex Okwuashi said that one of the things that the chartered institute will do is to fill the vacuum which years of lack of regulation have caused.
According to him, once assented to by the President, the CISN will commence standardization of the industry. He expressed optimism that what led to the collapse of many agencies will no longer happen. “The CISN will ensure that only competent and qualified personnel are engaged to man the various positions, industry practitioners can now be equated with their counterparts in other parts of the world”, he stressed.
The CISN Bill is a private member bill that was sponsored by the deputy chairman House of Representatives committee on marine transport.
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