The Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside has assured that Nigerian indigenous shipowners will take centre stage in the establishment of a new national carrier because part of the proceeds of the Cabotage Vessel Finance Fund (CVFF) will be used to fund the project. Peterside stated this at an interactive session with the maritime media in Lagos last week. Dapo Olawuni and Roland Ekama were there for Shipping Position Daily.
Past DGs have come with robust vision, but it doesn't translate into realities
There are two things I look out for when people speak, the first thing is the integrity of the person, those who know my antecedents know the kind of person I am. I have served as a Commissioner in Rivers State, I also served in the National Assembly, during this period, there is nothing that I committed myself to that I did not do, I am not a man that will toil with my integrity, not for the DGship of NIMASA which is not the peak of my life. I understand that there are challenges in public service, especially in turning vision to reality, I acknowledge that what we want to do is dependent on the minister and the National Assembly, my believe is that we have a transformation minister so we already have his support, also, the National Assembly is my constituency so I believe I would be able to navigate my way, I have no doubt in my colleagues at NIMASA, so I believe we would achieve our goals.
How do you intend to provide seatime for Nigerian cadets?
Already we have given our word to provide seatime experience for our people, we have already taken action by placing the advert out there for shipowners to indicate interest to partner with us, at the end of six weeks, I am sure we will have responses. I am passionate about it, no good leader would relegate this to the background, it only means that the millions of dollars we spent will go down the drain and I don't want that to happen, we would ensure the cadets get on board and at the end of the day, they get employment.
What recent steps is NIMASA taking on the issue of piracy?
The first thing that will discourage people from going into piracy is if they notice our continuous presence and patrol teams on the waterways, but unfortunately we cannot be everywhere, we have a long stretch of coastline, so we have to use technology to bridge the gap. On our own side we have the NIMASA satellite system; with this, we would have a birds-eye view of what is happening in the entire maritime domain of Nigeria. In addition, the Nigerian Navy has acquired the maritime domain access called Falcon Eye, the NPA has its own facility too that will put an eye on our maritime domain. However, all these are not enough, we must be able to move fast enough to stop any crime we notice, this is why we are acquiring fast moving vessels with naval men on board and NIMASA people, the vessels would serve dual purpose of enforcement activities and support security agencies. We have already advertised for the vessels and we would engage the vessels. The Air Force on the other hand would join us to do regular Marine Aircraft Patrol (MPA) they would be connected to the vessels on ground, we also have the unmanned aerial vessels (UAV) which would be able to respond to incidences on the ground, it is the response capability we are trying to deal with. The third leg is that when the criminals are arrested, we want to ensure that they are prosecuted. Nigeria is the only maritime country that does not have Anti-Piracy Law, we are already arranging for this; we are getting support from UNDP, IMO, the US government and other international organisations. The vessels would come in by September.
How do you intend to achieve this at a time when finances are down?
If we block all leakages, the revenue of NIMASA would be enhanced, we acknowledge that the global downturn have impact on our revenue, the new forex regime in Nigeria, the new import and export policy of the government also impacted on us, several items have been banned coupled with the crash in oil prices. Most of our activities revolve around oil and gas, the global price of crude has fallen and the militant activities in the Niger Delta have also reduced production, and if Nigeria exports less crude, NIMASA would earn less revenue, but by blocking leakages, we would get more revenue. Also, we are automating our system and this will also help.
What is happening to the CVFF, it belongs to the shipowners, why is it being used for the establishment of a shipping line?
The CVFF is established and governed by law, the Minister is to make regulations, after making regulations, NIMASA is to implement through the primary lending institutions, we have had issues with the CVFF and it has to do with lack of political will, there is no other reason why we should not have disbursed it before now. I have looked at the regulations and I don't think we have any problem with the regulations. There is an argument that if the CVFF is disbursed it would be abused, the same way the (sic) ship building and ship financing fund was abused, this happened because there was no proper guideline governing the disbursement. But, I have looked at the guideline governing CVFF and I am satisfied that if we disburse it, people will pay back and it would not be abused.
The Minister has developed a model and he is discussing with stakeholders, if the ultimate aim of CVFF is to grow local tonnage and capacity of indigenous ship owners, the minister is read to use any approach, he is facilitating the coming together of Nigerian Shipowners, instead of them buying small local vessels, there would be a consolidation and they will acquire an ocean going vessel that will participate in the lifting of our crude and gas; the minister is already facilitating this. The National Carrier is important to us for several reasons; it would provide training, job opportunities, national pride and economic benefits.
It was the stakeholders that suggested that since the CVFF is for shipowners and they have come together to fund a shipping line, all that is needed is to bring in the international partners and use the CVFF to support them acquire bigger vessels, so we have not lost the objective.
After this we would disburse whatever amount left to individual ship owners, I don't think we are out of track, I can assure you that before the end of our tenure, CVFF would be used for the purpose it is meant for.
Maritime growth plan and staff welfare
The maritime growth plan is not my own creation, we all sat down at a retreat to come up with it and we are working together to fashion out a way forward. I can tell you that every staff of NIMASA is involved through their head of departments and head of unit, they all made inputs. The welfare of staff is a different issue, I am a people's person, I believe people must be provided with right environment and tools to work, the right environment includes ensuring that they get their statutory allowances approved by law, I will ensure that every penny that staff are entitled to is not denied them, I believe in the welfare of the people and I will go to any extent to fight for their welfare. But I will not do anything illegal, but take it from me that we will factor-in the welfare of staff in the restructuring process.
How will restructuring affect NIMASA; are you employing or downsizing?
The restructuring we want to carry out is that we are looking at the way we are doing our work, we are looking at the organogram and doing what we called competency profiling, this is to ensure that the right persons are on the right job, not to find a ship surveyor doing a PR job or accounting. So we are trying to create a new job schedule and getting the right persons on the right job, I would not necessarily lead to job losses or employment of more persons, in my opinion, NIMASA is presently over-staffed and we don't need more people, I am not keen to bring anybody in, I believe we have the best hands in NIMASA and we want to put these hands to work, we have not utilized them enough, so I am not in hurry to employ.
Global West and New MoU with Navy
Global West was not engaged to provide NIMASA security, they are to provide vessels, the people who mount the vessels are naval men, Nigerian laws will not empower private individuals to bear arms. But what we are doing now is to re-engineer the same process, we are signing a new MoU with the Navy and the Air Force, we would still bring the same naval men on board the vessels in addition to NIMASA people and ensure compliance with IMO regulations, so we are doing the same thing but in a different way.
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