KALUSKY YECHIEL
What informed the idea of this training?
KALUSKY YECHIEL
What informed the idea of this training?
First of all, I must say that we are trying to follow the best standard of seafarers which I must say is of international standard and we need to follow the international standard in terms of training and I have not invented anything of my own, but I am only implementing what I had learnt in my past experiences form international regulations and standards. I am only trying to implement all what I have learnt to Nigerians and with what we have been doing in the last four years when we started is to try to bring this new idea as something common because everybody is expected to look at the training and look at the standard that we are bringing as something common and not something special, although before it was special, but for now it is more like a routine. To me training is part of our routine and what we are going to gain is that first of all, our seafarers have mandatory and part of the mandatory is first aid because every crew members must obtain the mandatory because without the mandatory you a cannot go onboard a ship and also we involve fire fighting; surviving is part of it. So, first of all our crew have mandatory which is the basic and of course when you talk about first aid we have basic and we also have the advance and the course we are undertaking right now is the advance which will enable people to know and also go the extra mile and have extra treatment, not just the first aid treatment.
How can you compare the Nigeria standard with international standard?
International is international, Nigeria is one of the members of International Maritime Organisation. But Nigeria also ratified the standard of the international convention.
After this training, what’s next?
We just finished the basic where we trained 50 persons and now we are in the advanced stage. Let me say that according to international standard, every vessel should have a first aid kit and there is a declaration on the kind of first aid kit that the vessel is supposed to carry onboard and again like I said, I have not invented anything. So if a coastal vessel search for first aid kits which we call level ‘C’ but all the external will have first aid kit ‘C’, in other words every seafarer that is working today on my vessels which is internal coastal and tomorrow you go to work with another vessel, he will open the first aid box and it is still be like the same first aid kit, which is the international standard that we are talking about.
Can you give us an insight about Landfall Transport and Towage Nigeria limited?
Landfall Towage is an establishment that manages the Nigeria Port Authority’s vessel tugs and since we started people need to know what is happening concerning towage because we know what it was before and how we achieve it is about bringing everything to standards. When we started the first thing I mentioned is to bring the standard to what is expected internationally, that is bringing up what is expected.
When is the next training coming up?
The next training will come up next week on advance first aid and let me say that when I look at the way to do training, I found out that every year we need to plan on how to do trainings and the ways to go about it and I found out that there is need to plan for the next year, that is from every last quarter of the year you plan ahead for the next year and we are talking about first aid course here, but there are lots of courses we are doing ,lots of training programmes we are doing and we have achieved all that. However we sent some of our people also to overseas, thus every year, I submit to my management in the last quarter of the year what is expected in the next coming year which I am getting budget for and this is part of my operation. So I look at training as part of budget and also part of my operations, in other word, I plan it one year ahead. Come next month I have plans for the budget for 2013 and this is the way I have been working and as we speak I have a five- year programme on my head and every year I am doing part of it which at the end we meet all the standards that are necessary.
From the inception, how many Nigerian seafarers has the company been able to train?
I can not recall for now, but I know that we have trained all cadres of seafarers up to the level of Certificate of Competency and like I mentioned earlier, we do spend a lot of money towards the training of the seafarers and it is not only local training that we do, but international as well because we are thinking of how move the maritime industry forward.
CAPTAIN ABIODUN OMOTESO
What actually informed the idea of the training?
Matral Training Centre is established to meet the needs of maritime training up to international standard and as we have heard it, the school is in Tinapa in Calabar, Cross River state and the idea of it all is to bring up young boys and girls to a particular level of training which can be measurable to international standard which I will say is missing at the moment. The Matral Institute is there to address questions of human capacity development and certification which entails adequate training. And we have been called upon by Landfall Transport and Towage Nigeria Limited because our school has been accredited and that is why we are here. Like I said, it is all about standard because if you do not have standard that is acceptable to the international community (which is one of things that are wrong in the country), the certificates obtained here are just like ordinary paper that anyone can read and throw away in a trash can. But what we have done to move ahead of others is to bring in a sort of certifying the courses and these courses will be acceptable if you meet some criteria and of course the classification society handling it are in charge of telling us what to do ,inspecting the courses and the rest are by the American Bureau of Shipping academic section and they are on ground to inspect what we are doing. Moreover this is just the beginning and the General Manager of Landfall has brought in a new dimension to the organization here to ensure that the sea staff and the shore staff meet international standard.
Why is Matral Training Center located in Cross Rivers and not in Lagos?
You want a standard maritime training; you need an environment for training which must be an environment of concentration by the students. In other words, the environment means a lot to a very maritime training institution, because it is not right to put a school on the main road and expect the students to have absolute concentration. The environment we are right now is perfect for such training because when you talk about falling aboard the ship, your orientation goes to the ship you are seeing in front of you so we went to Calabar because of the environment. I will urge you to go to Tinapa because when you get there for training you concentrate, although you can have a maritime school everywhere, but if you know the professionals that are behind the school you will love to know where the centre is. So forget about whether Lagos is busy with maritime activities or not.
How long is the training and what will the participants benefit at the end of the day?
The International Maritime Organization [IMO] standard days; that is five days of intensive training to all the participants present and they will obtain Certificate of Competency in the advance level.
How can the lot of Nigerian seafarers be made better?
It is a problem in Nigeria and the federal government need to sit up in the area of making the lives of Nigeria seafarers better because we are not facing realities as far as seafarers are concerned in the country. In the 1960s and 1970s, Nigeria seafarers were sailing aboard foreign flag vessels because they had the best training and they also had the advantage of speaking English language.
As an expert in the industry, what do you think can be done to remedy the situation?
There is the need for private sector participation. For instance Landfall is a private firm and they know what they want and where they are going, also they know the standard they want to achieve so it is a question of private sector participation to address some of the issues of seafarers. All over the world, private Universities have an edge over government- owned Universities and the maritime sector is not an inception in the area of manpower development.
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