By Barnabas ESIET
The Director General of the Nigeria Maritime and Safety Agency, NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, has expressed his readiness to change the negative reputation of the agency that he inherited from his predecessors.
Dr Peter side told maritime journalists at a parley in Lagos on Wednesday that his administration would focus on restructuring, reforming and repositioning the agency in line with the current requirements of the global maritime industry.
He outlined five key areas where the tranformation would be anchored to include;
1. Survey, inspection, certification and transformation initiative
2.Environment, security search and rescue initiative
3. Capacity building and promotional initiative
4.Digital transformation
5. structural and cultural tranformation.
The NiMASA boss explained that the new initiative would help ensure that Nigeria’s territorial waters are save and secure for vessels that are sea worthy and those who man the vessels are qualified to do so according to the international maritime organisation requirements.
“Digitalisation will help reduce corruption, all management processes would be automated to enhance transparency, reduce corruption and manipulation, for instance, if you want to register a vessel you don’t need to come to NIMASA office to do that, you can simply download all the necessary documents for the first Registration online in the comfort of your office or home.”
“We intend to embark on a change management programme that focuses on the culture and work ethics of those who work in NIMASA, by the end of three years we plan to have ocean going vessels that are flagged Nigeria, why is it that not one ocean going vessel is currently flagged Nigeria? We intend to change that, the Federal Ministry of Transport is keen on setting up a national carrier and we believe that this is in the right direction.” He explained.
Dr. Peterside noted that the 5-point transformation agenda would be implemented within the framework of the Maritime Medium Term Growth Plan, MMTGP, (2017-2018)while also promising to fully implement the cabotage law during his tenure as the Director General of NIMASA.
