The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, (NIMASA) has again restated its position to ensuring the full implementation and enforcement of the International Ships and Ports Facility Security (ISPS) code in the nation’s ports.
The Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside stated this at the opening ceremony of a five-day training programme facilitated by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in conjunction with NIMASA on ISPS code compliance in Lagos.
Peterside observed that skilled, efficient and talented workers are critical to the growth of the maritime sectorr assuring NIMASA will continually equip its staff with new knowledge, skills and technologies necessary to ensure compliance with the ISPS Code.
According to him, “Our people and values are hallmarks of a good and strongorganisation. Recognising that our greatest asset is our people, the leadership of the maritime industry in Nigeria, is committed to building a skilled, talented and effective workforce. This is why we take advantage of every training programme to equip our people and prepare them for new challenges that come up daily in the course of carrying out their assignments.”
He also disclosed that in pursuit of its vision to reposition the maritime industry, NIMASA has developed an in-house training initiative to continuously update the skills of its staff and keep them in tune with various developments in the industry.
While assuring the participants that the training will be continuous, Peterside said that the Agency as the Designated Authority (DA) for the implementation of ISPS Code, will work with local and International stakeholders to develop quality industry specific training for its staff, to enhance their performance and productivity in the line of duty.
He thanked the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi for showing rare leadership in the maritime industry.
“Things are turning around in the maritime industry because we have a Minister who understands that the industry offers Nigeria a great opportunity to leapfrog our economy”, he stated.
Meanwhile, Peterside has highlighted his management’s determination to make the agency a world class, high performance organisation.
He said this during the Management Performance Review (MPR) of the Agency held in Lagos. He said the Agency’s repositioning initiative is all encompassing and when concluded would be beneficial to the entire maritime sector.
The NIMASA boss also said that the MPR was an avenue to assess the progress being made by the Agency viz-a-viz its reform, restructuring and repositioning drive to ensure that the Agency’s mandate is achieved.
According to the DG, “There is no organisation that can grow without innovation and the MPR affords us a rare opportunity to assess our journey thus far. It is a rare privilege to match set goals with results, to assess ourselves on how far we have gone in this journey.
“When I joined you in NIMASA we sat down and agreed to build a world class high performance organisation. In subscribing to that, we set out to craft a Medium Term Strategic plan which would be our roadmap. We have already started the critical elements of the things we agreed that are necessary to build a world class maritime organisation.
One is the automation of our processes and to fast track this, we set up a special taskforce. It is our vision that by October, NIMASA would be fully automated.”
He noted that the dream of the Agency is to be recognised as the foremost maritime regulatory Agency in Africa that is the pride of the continent.
Peterside who said that the Agency has the duty to facilitate maritime business not to stifle it also assured stakeholders that NIMASA will create an enabling environment that would satisfy the yearnings of all.
“The bigger picture is to build a world class, high performance organisation that would satisfy the interest and yearnings of our clients as well as serve the interest of the country that set us up. We are indeed facilitators of maritime business, therefore we will not stifle it” he concluded.
