The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency have said it is targeting to have ship registry that is of world-class standard as Committee on review of the Nigerian Ship Registry submits reports.
The Agency Director-General, Dakuku Peterside explained that the goal was for Nigeria to have a ship registry which will meet international certification standards and compete favourably with the best in the global maritime communit, VON reports.
Dakuku who spoke in Lagos at the weekend during the submission of the reports of the committee set up to review the activities and operations of the Nigerian Ship Registration Office said NIMASA is working hard to give Nigerians a Ship Registry that is well respected across the globe.
The nine-man committee had terms of reference which included to examine the status of the ship registry in the country in line with international best practices and therefore advise and recommend requisite improvements of necessity in the registry.
The committee which was set up on February 27, 2018, has the sole aim of establishing a strategy which will help to revamp the Nigerian the registration process of ships in a bid to raise the profile of the Nigerian-flagged ships in the global maritime space.
He added that the new national ships registry will be attractive to ship-owners so that they can fly the Nigerian Flag.
He said: “In no distant future, our ship registry will be more effective and more efficient but also responsive to change by meeting all the set international standards for certification,”.
Dakuku noted that NIMASA already commenced the process of automating the nation’s Ship Registry, adding that from the preliminary report which was submitted earlier to the Agency, the diligent implementation of the committee’s findings would have beneficial effects on the maritime sector of the country.
“We are putting in place the necessary building blocks for Nigeria to be the first African country to achieve a five star International Standards Certification by 2020. International standard certification for ship registration is our goal at NIMASA.”
The committee chairman, Engr. Emmanuel Ilori, while speaking just before submitting the report, explained that ship registration and the effectiveness of the established processes in a country’s maritime sector operations were critical in determining the health of a national maritime administration.
Ilori stated, “All the committee’s efforts were geared towards ensuring at the Nigerian-flag is globally acceptable. We carried out extensive reviews of the Nigerian Ship Registry and also took cognizance of stakeholders’ opinions and expectations, and carried out a comparative analysis of the ship registration processes of some Global Registries in arriving at the report. “NIMASA Management should consider and implement submissions contained in the report.”
