From Anthony Nwachukwu, Lagos
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has once again rekindled hopes of gainful deployment and utilization of its modular floating dock, which costs the nation over N50 billion to procure few years ago.
Reviewing the NIMASA performance in 2021 and previewing year 2022, the agency’s Director-General, Dr. Bashir Jamoh, told newsmen in Lagos over the weekend of plans for its privatization on Public Private Partnership (PPP) basis.
He assured that the facility would become operational before the end of 2022 first quarter, adding: “However, we don’t want the government or NIMASA to operate it alone but through Public Private Partnership.”
Noting that “as usual, the issue of privatisation of any government property is not a product but a process,” he disclosed that the partners will include the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) as co-partner, which will provide its Continental Shipyard.
“We have been undergoing this process, and the DG ICRC was here for the first certificate, telling us that privatisation of the floating dock is profitable, doable and they gave us the go-ahead to do that. We expect in no distant future, maximum by February 2022, privatisation must be approved by the Federal Executive Council because it’s a national asset.”
Also, NIMASA has introduced the seafarers’ Certificate of Competency (CoC) online verification portal to enable shipowners directly and conveniently access and assess qualified candidates.
Jamoh explained that the portal was introduced to rebuild the lost confidence in the authenticity of Nigerian seafarers’ CoC due to forgery, and “we had been experiencing rejection of Nigerian seafarers by shipowners, both locally and internationally.”
Now, this platform “has drastically reduced falsification of Nigerian seafarers’ certificate and enhanced their employment in the maritime sector.”
Meanwhile, he stated that a total of 246 certificates were revalidated for 2021. Worried at candidates’ high failure rate in the NIMASA revalidation exams, he said the agency was already liaising with various institutions to address the problem, hoping that it would be rectified before June 2022.
According to him, under the officers’ cadre, 565 (68 per cent) of the 829 who sat the examination in 2020 failed, while for officers’ ratings, 926 (74 per cent) of a total of 1,251 candidates who sat the exams passed and 325 (26 per cent) failed.
In 2021, a total of 1,327 students – a sharp increase on the 2020 figure of 1,251, sat the ratings examination; 990 (74 per cent) passed, while 337 (26 per cent) failed.
Jamoh added: “You can see very serious and negative figures in terms of our students sitting the professional certificate examinations, amounting to 68 per cent failure.
“The agency is liaising with various institutions to see how we can address this gap. There are so many factors attached to this, and we hope that before the middle of 2022, we would overcome these challenges.”
