A Marine Engineer; Ike Chilaka, has said that until a total overhaul is done at the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), it will be difficult for the agency to actualize its core responsibility.
Chilaka who spoke with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos yesterday, also accused the agency of being politicized, thereby losing it focus.
He described the nation's apex maritime agency as a political party, yet to have a nomenclature. According to him appointment of chief executives of the agency is based solely on political considerations.
He said: "NIMASA is a political party; it’s just that it is not bearing any political name. So policies have made them to lose focus on what they are supposed to be doing. Each time there is a leadership in NIMASA, the leadership tends to be directed by the politics of the day. It is a place for politicians and these things affect what NIMASA should be doing. Until a total overhaul is done and whoever that will come on board be from the rank and file of professionals in the industry".
He advised NIMASA to encourage seafarers and practitioners by making loans available for them to start up even as he maintained that the agency is rich enough to support individuals to acquire vessels.
"NIMASA should have to encourage seafarers, If you go abroad, most seafarers there, the kind of money they have there, they can encourage us to have our own vessels, they have tried it once and it worked, so they can still try it again. So why are they no longer doing that why did they stop, people may tend to misuse the resources, it is your responsible to discover how to check them", argued.
He reiterated that the maritime industry is huge with the potentials to sustain the nation even without oil.
He called on NIMASA to ensure that wrecks of abandoned vessels on the waterways are cleared to ensure security.
"Can you imagine few of my friends put money together to buy a vessel that will come back here and work and we are looking for money to fuel that vessel down to this place. We have engaged some Nigerian crew to go and bring the vessel down to this place and they are the people that will work on the vessel to earn a living and we are going to run some commercial ventures that will put some money into the coffers of this country"
"But there is no sponsor; of course you don't talk about banks, no bank will like to give you money. But there is so much amount of money in that place that can be used to sponsor this kind of things. So talking about these people will take us a long time, I will only talk about what they didn't do", he concluded.
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