The Nigeria Merchant Navy Officers and Water Transport Senior Staff Association has charged the Director General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency [NIMASA]; Dr. Dakuku Peterside to ensure that Nigerian ship owners are given consideration in the agency’s quest to generate more revenue for the Federal Government.
Setting agenda for NIMASA for 2017, the National President of the union; Engineer Matthew Alalade in chat with Shipping Position Daily, exclusively in Lagos last week, stressed the need for the agency to also lay more emphasis on safety at sea by personnel aboard any form of crafts.
Alalade reiterated that the agency should also create an enabling environment to parley with critical stakeholders, most especially the Nigerian Navy, Nigerian Air force, Police and the unions for feedback, intelligence gathering and situational reports at sea.
While reacting to the DG recent comment on revenue drive, Alalade noted that Nigeria’s economy was undergoing recession, thus there is need for the agency to work harder and collect more revenue into the coffers of the government.
Alalade said: ‘’Indeed the country is in recession and when you are in recession, you need money to be out of it, therefore we support him to make more money for the federal government in order for us to come out of this current hardship’’
‘’We know that the budget is in deficit and the agency need to make more money by way of boosting its revenue base, but we want to advise that NIMASA should not make things too hard for our stakeholders, most especially the ship owners ‘’
‘’We don’t want NIMASA to be too hard on our ship owners in process of collecting taxes, levies, and ship registration from the operators in the course of their ships”, he added.
He also appealed to the agency to create a level playing field for ship owners to remain in business, saying harsh policies on the part of government would further threaten the operators’ investment.
The union top brass further commended the DG on the recent proposal to train junior officers otherwise known as ratings, stressing that there is need to also look inward to train the senior officers.
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