Engr. Alex Peters (Marine engineer)
The problem of NIMASA stems from her foundation and the way business is conducted in Nigeria, on the micro level, perhaps the NIMASA Act ought to be revisited with a view to devolving powers internally and depoliticizing executive appointments, most especially in the upper echelon of NIMASA.
Alhaji Galtima Liman (Maritime consultant)
The problem with NIMASA is essentially that of an agency that is generating huge foreign exchange and must find a reason to expend that foreign exchange; as long as it is not using it for the main purpose which is for commercial fleet development. The main reason why we have the financial difficulties that the chief executives are having is because they don’t work in tandem with their minister of transport, if they are allowed to work together and set aside these funds for ship building, there will not be problems, but this is not the case. The Director General must be given robust mandates because it is not a small organization, a container ship is around a US$100Million and you are not allowing the DG to spend even N5 million, each time he is answerable to one oversight responsibility or the other and shipping is not done that way. So NIMASA must be recognized as extra- ministerial agency, it is equal to the NNPC in robustness, but the DG’s are constrained by approval limits. In a situation whereby you cannot spend funds as supposed, there will be internal war between board members. So if we want to avoid corruption, there has to be clear designation of what to do and the approval limits, there is no need to be running to the minister every now and then just to get approvals, this create a lot of problems for the Director General.
Captain Adewale Ishola (Master mariner)
Professionals must be assigned to head these agencies, professional considerations and not political should be considered in assigning people to the maritime agencies as chief executives. Why is it that Shippers’ Council is not having the same problem? It is because a professional and master mariner is there, look at what Harold Demuren is doing at the Federal Civil Aviation Authority where Nigeria is getting first class approvals from the United States, but see what is happening in our maritime sector. Compare the headship of maritime administrations all over the world and bring out for me anyone that is not a professional, if we are able to solve this problem, then we will come to the end of it all. If you go to other neighbouring countries like Ghana for instance, not to talk of the UK, Singapore as so on, you will find out that professionals are the ones in charge of their maritime affairs and they are the ones recognized by IMO, but here in Nigeria everything is politically manipulated. But at least if an experienced person is assigned to head the post, then he will probably know how to use his skills to avoid these pitfalls in NIMASA.
Dr. Alex Okwuashi (Registrar, CIS)
The situation that is ongoing at the NIMASA is a very serious one, I am not trying to take sides here but I think they should leave NIMASA alone, I am not talking about Temi Omatseye as a person but NIMASA as a whole, each headship of NIMASA is supposed to run for at least four years or five years, let there be stability and expiration of tenure. If you sack somebody today and tomorrow you bring in another person, it creates room for racketing, splitting and all sorts of sharp practices because each of them will be looking for how to make his own money before he is sacked, but if he knows he can be there for four years, then he will be focused to do his job, Governors go in and they spend their four years tenure so why can’t they allow NIMASA a free hand to work.
NIMASA is a very volatile place that has a very high political interest, so anytime this kind of issue comes up, one will want to look at the level of the experience of the party concerned, but Temisan is not a green horn as far as the sector is concerned, he has passion for shipping and has been in the system for some time, it is not mandatory that you must be a degree holder in shipping or maritime before you can head NIMASA, over the years some people have been trained by NIMASA on how maritime administration should be done, all you just need is somebody who has the overall idea, it is under the first two to three years that a professional can begin to perform, but if you don’t allow the person to stay, after one year you sack him, then he can’t do anything.
Capt Thomas Kemewerigha [National President, Nigeria Merchant Navy)
Human beings are subject to mistakes and what matters most is when you realized that you are making a mistake and you will not make it again. NIMASA is not the only parastatal in the transport sector. We have Shippers Council and we have NPA. My candid advice is this we must have a stable government in NISAMA because NIMASA is the anchor to the growth of the maritime industry, the rapid change is not doing NIAMSA any good. Power tussle, envy, everybody want to acquire that position in NIMASA because it is assumed to be a goldmine but one gospel truth is that NIMASA gives too much publicity. In every week in and out there is an article concerning NIMASA and of course NIMASA is not a press centre, it is set up for a purpose. If NIMASA will concentrate on its core mandate and does less of publicity, they will be focused because as for today too much infringement from outside. Everybody want to know what NIMASA eat, you don’t go to NPA and see such, NIMASA should concentrate on its work and give less concentration to the press.
John Obot (Maritime reporter, FRCN)
NIMASA appointments has always been political, if it was based on professionalism, it would have lasted, the sudden change of management does not help any organization because they will all be coming with their different policies and will want to implement it differently, so it does not help. If the management of NIMASA had always been on professionalism it would have lasted, any regime that is politically based does not often last. Left to me, I will say that they should leave Omatseye to finish his tenure because he is verseed in areas of shipping, coming from the family of ship owners and has also studied maritime law, I think he is professionally fit for the job, but the problem he is having is political, so personally what I think can bring stability to NIMASA is for the appointment to be based of professionalism; give it to professionals who know the job, Temisan knows the job.
Discussion about this post