MARAN Condemns Incessant Changes In Maritime Industry

The Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN) has expressed concern over the frequent changes in the leadership of government agencies in the maritime industry.
In a press statement signed by Mr Funso Olojo, the Secretary-General of the association, the group flayed the recent management sack of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) which it described as ill-timed and unfortunate.

The Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN) has expressed concern over the frequent changes in the leadership of government agencies in the maritime industry.
In a press statement signed by Mr Funso Olojo, the Secretary-General of the association, the group flayed the recent management sack of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) which it described as ill-timed and unfortunate.
The association noted that the two parastatals have over the years become political hotbeds which have consumed successive management staff with frightening regularity.
‘’The changes have not only set a legacy of management instability and policy somersaults in these agencies, it has always set the industry back in the determined efforts of government to reposition it for optimal performance’’, MARAN observed.
It noted with concern that the management positions at NPA and NIMASA, the two foremost maritime regulatory bodies, have become the fabled banana peels to the extent that successive managements of the two agencies are more pre-occupied with how to survive the political chicanery than to discharge the statutory functions of these agencies.
 The body of maritime journalists further lamented this trend which it regretted has not allowed these agencies to realize their full potentials.
The body observed that the recent changes in the two government agencies were not only unnecessary but hasty, especially the removal of the chief executive officer of the NPA, Engr Omar Suleiman, given the infrastructural revolution which the sacked helmsman had initiated at the Nigerian ports.
‘’The tenure of the immediate past NPA high chief was prematurely done at a time when he showed uncommon passion to rehabilitate the dilapidated infrastructure at the nation’s ports’’, the association note.
It however advised the government to exercise restraints in its intervention at these agencies in a bid not to disrupt their policy flow and boost the confidence of the occupiers of these offices.
‘’These frequent changes are ill-wind which blows nobody any good and government should ensure that the appointments into these agencies are depoliticized in order to accelerate the process of transformation agenda of the present administration at the ports’’, the association concluded.