The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has restated its commitment to ensuring a decent environment and ethics for Nigerian dockworkers.
At a sensitization seminar organized for dockworkers in Lagos last week, Director General of NIMASA, Patrick Akpobolokemi said that NIMASA is working assiduously to ensure that the perception of dock work as a job for the lowly in the society and unskilled individuals is changed.
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has restated its commitment to ensuring a decent environment and ethics for Nigerian dockworkers.
At a sensitization seminar organized for dockworkers in Lagos last week, Director General of NIMASA, Patrick Akpobolokemi said that NIMASA is working assiduously to ensure that the perception of dock work as a job for the lowly in the society and unskilled individuals is changed.
Represented by the Executive Director Maritime Safety, Captain Ezekiel Agaba, the DG expressed the resolve of the agency to utilize part of the funds accruing from the 0.5% stevedoring earnings collected from dock Labor employers to train dock workers.
Akpobolokemi however regretted that terminal operators are yet to fulfill their obligations to Nigerian dockworkers in this regard.
"I wish to inform you of the agency's resolve to utilize part of the funds accruing from the 0.5% stevedoring earnings collected from dock Labor employers to train dock workers, unfortunately as I speak to you, some of the terminal operators are yet to fulfill this statutory obligation", he lamented.
"I therefore implore operators to partner with us in the interest of the maritime labor industry and be assured of the agency's willingness in ensuring operational efficiency at the ports", Akpobolokemi said.
Also speaking at the seminar, President of the Stevedoring Association of Nigeria, Mr. Bolaji Sunmola commended NIMASA for bringing the dockworkers and their employers together to look at providing proper work ethics at the ports.
"It is a right step in the right direction and I really commend NIMASA for it", he pointed out.
He called on terminal operators to ensure adequate support for dockworkers in other to get the required training for the job.
"Skills are meant to be acquired and we need to be assisted to acquire the necessary skills for cargo discharge", he stated.
Sunmola also lamented that many terminal operators and bonded terminals have jettisoned the need for dock labor at their facilities.
"Terminal operators are doing the work of the stevedore, in the first place they are not supposed to be handling cargoes, they are supposed to be warehouse managers, the cargoes belong to the stevedores" he argued.
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