The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) is set to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA) on Cabotage implementation, enforcement processes and capacity building.
The Director-General of NIMASA, Dr Dakuku Peterside, said this when he received the Director-General of GMA, Mr Kwame Owusu who visited him at the NIMASA headquarters in Lagos.
According to a statement by NIMASA on Friday in Lagos, areas being considered in the MoU are: regular knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer; capacity building initiatives; and Cabotage implementation/Enforcement processes.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Coastal and Inland Shipping Act, otherwise known as the Cabotage Act was enacted in 2003.
The Act was enacted to restrict the use of foreign vessels in domestic coastal trade to promote the development of indigenous (Nigerian) tonnage. According to Peterside, in carrying out its statutory functions, NIMASA is strengthened by three important Acts of Parliament namely: the Merchant Shipping Act, the NIMASA Act and the Cabotage Act.
He told the Ghanaian team that NIMASA needed to actualise its core mandates of shipping development, maritime safety and security, and maritime labour services, among others.
Peterside said that NIMASA “is currently repositioning and rebranding for greater efficiency, geared toward realising a virile maritime sector in line with global best practices’’.
“We have taken a number of initiatives to reform, restructure and reposition the organisation.
“Our vision is to focus on becoming the foremost maritime administration in Africa and advancing Nigeria’s maritime goal,’’ the director-general said.
Earlier, Owusu commended the doggedness of the management of NIMASA in repositioning the Nigerian maritime sector and by extension, the entire Africa.
“We are here to strengthen the bilateral relationships that exist between both countries; and to learn international best practices from you.
“We are also here to learn and share part of the experiences of NIMASA so that we can replicate same in our country,’’ he said.
(NAN)
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