The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has expressed its readiness to partner with the British Military in the area of human capacity building for the development of the Nigerian maritime sector.
Receiving a delegation from the British Military Advisory and Training Team (BMATT) led by Commander Shaun Quinn of the Royal Navy during a recent courtesy visit to the agency, the Acting Director General, Mr. Haruna Baba Jauro stated that capacity building is very vital to the growth and development of the Nigerian maritime sector.
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has expressed its readiness to partner with the British Military in the area of human capacity building for the development of the Nigerian maritime sector.
Receiving a delegation from the British Military Advisory and Training Team (BMATT) led by Commander Shaun Quinn of the Royal Navy during a recent courtesy visit to the agency, the Acting Director General, Mr. Haruna Baba Jauro stated that capacity building is very vital to the growth and development of the Nigerian maritime sector.
Mr. Jauro further said that the relationship between the British and the Nigerian government dates back to the pre-colonial era and that the NIMASA is willing to consolidate on the already existing relationship, especially in the area of training for the growth and development of the Nigerian maritime sector and the nation at large.
“The Agency is willing and ready to collaborate with the British Military in the area of training of our personnel because training is part of capacity building and capacity building is key to the growth and development of the maritime sector”, the DG said.
Earlier, the leader of the delegation who is also the BMATT Staff Officer Maritime, Commander Shaun Quinn noted that the reason for the visit was to know some of the functions of NIMASA and to also discuss possible areas of collaboration with the Agency as regards training of its personnel towards enhancing a virile and safer maritime sector.
Commander Quinn also said that the British High Commission is busy refreshing relationships with the country since a new administration took over and that the British Military will always be ready to build a closer working relationship with the Nigerian government where the interest of both countries is put into consideration to enhance trade facilitation and security on the nation’s waterways.
Industrial Chemicals, Agricultural Equipment Should Attract 0% Duty——–ANLCA Member 4
Public Relations Officer of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) at PTML Terminal in Lagos, Mr Gani Adeola has called on the Federal Government to encourage agricultural sector and local manufacturing by placing zero duty on industrial chemicals and agricultural equipment.
Adeola in a chat with Shipping Position Dailysaid that at the moment, these items attract ten percent import duty which is not supposed to be so.
The ANLCA image maker also lamented the exclusion of his association from the membership of the Policy Review Committee set up by President Muhammadu Buhari recently.
He observed that there are numbers of policies in the maritime sector which needs to be reviewed and that ANLCA being the largest association in the sector should have been carried along as a member of the committee.
"We are supposed to let President Buhari to be aware that the automobile policy must be reviewed, the import guideline must be reviewed, the duty percentage on imports must be reviewed, Buhari in his campaign promised to create more jobs, if our dead industries are woken up, they will employ more staff, the textile industry must also be revived"
"All chemicals coming into this country supposed to be zero duty, any industrial chemical is supposed to be zero per cent duty but today we have some chemicals that attract 5% and 10% duty, when you go to neighbouring countries they try to empower their local products by bringing down the prices of their commodity and all their chemicals imported is at zero per cent"
"Agricultural equipment are also zero per cent, but in Nigeria, they are 5% and 10%, when you say you want to improve on agriculture, everything concerning agriculture should be looked into".
He argued that the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) is supposed to contact ANLCA in order to get inputs on how to advise the government accordingly on the policies.
"We have intellectuals in ANLCA, we are supposed to be a member of that policy review committee, they invited MAN and they are also supposed to contact ANLCA because we have a large membership, we have more than two thousand licenses and each of the companies have at least five staff, so we are very productive" he said.
He said that this is the time ANLCA needs to organize a large stakeholder’s forum and invite the lawmakers and other government functionaries in order to attract attention to the maritime and freight forwarding sector.
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