Ship Owners Commend NIMASA Cabot age Initiative

 

 The recent moves by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) to ensure full implementation of the Cabotage Act, 2003 through the New Cabotage Compliance Strategy (NCCS) has   receive commendation from ship owners

The Nigerian Ship owners Association (NISA) led by the Lagos State Coordinator, Captain Taiwo Akinpelumi has stated that the association is pleased with the direction NIMASA is heading towards the full realization of the Cabotage regime.

He stated that NISA as a body shares in the vision of the regulatory body to reposition the maritime sector for greater efficiency and productivity, hence the call for continuous partnership so that they as professionals can bring to the table their professional expertise in assisting NIMASA realize its full mandate.

He said, “Ship owners are the essence of NIMASA, without ship owners there will be no NIMASA and without NIMASA, there will be no ship owners. So we have a reason to interact even a lot more than we are doing and that is why we are here. NIMASA is there for us and we are there for NIMASA. We are the two wings of the bird because no bird can fly with only one wing.

In his reaction, the Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside extolled the role of ship owners to the maritime sector as key players to the sustenance and survival of the Nigerian maritime sector and urged them to help the Agency realize its mandates onregards Cabotage implementation as enshrined in the NIMASA Act.

He said, “We will look at the MoU we had with NISA many years ago and review it and look at the possibility of revisiting it. We are pushing it back to you as a task and we believe that you will come with very useful suggestions on the way forward”, the DG said.

Other issues addressed include multiple charges in the industry among other salient matters, which both parties have agreed to work on.