Oluyinka Onigbinde
Seafarers including Master Mariners have said the Nigerian Seafarers Development Program (NSDP) is not enough to reduce unemployment rate among seafarers, this is even as they called for the disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) to help indigenous shipowners engage more seafarers.
The stakeholders who acknowledged the impact of the NSDP stated that the seafarers’ development programme is nothing if seafarers do not have a platform to work.
In a chat with our correspondent, the President of the National Association of Masters Mariners (NAMM) Capt Tajudeen Alao said that even though there is a shortage of seafarers all over the world, Nigeria is constrained by the number of seafarers in the country.
He further said that certification of seafarers is one of the major factors hindering Nigerian seafarers from getting employed by foreign shipowners.
“We have a shortage of seafarers all over the world, but in Nigeria, we are really constrained, the number of seafarers are more than the available space that we have, more importantly, training and prerequisite certification is the major hindrance, some people don’t have money to revalidate (their Certificate) because they have no job and if they don’t have a valid certificate, they can’t go on board
“Some people don’t have specialized training and if they don’t have it, they can’t get the job. NIMASA on its own is doing its best to make sure they get people engaged. But when our managers look at ageing officers and look for replacements for them, they embarked on NSDP programme, it was a good thing but we were over-ambitious, remember we were producing cadets from Oron too; they didn’t consider that, so they went over this over-ambitious project and the truth has caught up with everybody.
“The Nigerian government has pumped in a lot of money to make sure that cadets are placed on board every vessel of Cabotage; every Cabotage vessel must have two to four cadets, there are some companies that could have over 20 cadets, but when the ships are not engaged, and no jobs you cannot say they must keep staff.
Speaking also a former President of Merchant Navy; Capt Thomas Kemewerigha, noted that beyond sending cadets out for training there is a need to have vessels that will engage the seafarers, he said the NSDP without sea time is a total waste of time and resources.
Read Also: Non-Disbursement Of CVFF Disheartening – Minister of Transportation
“We have identified some of the problems as seatime and the likes. So if we can get training vessels to enable cadets to do their seatime, they will be certificated. In totality, the NSDP without sea time is rubbish. If NIMASA can convince us that they are paying for seatime for our graduates in countries where they study, they should also encourage the few Nigerian ships that we have to be able to compensate them to give them seatime to write their CoC.
“The Shipowners pay for every document they get from NIMASA. There is no favour NIMASA is doing to them. They pay for every statutory fee and you want to come and use their bed space for seatime. If those that are schooled abroad are also not getting sea time, then we know it is a waste. But if those monies have been used to acquire one or two training vessels on a commercial basis, everyone will be getting sea time, certificated and through that, the job will come” he opined.
Kindly like us on Facebook
