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 continued to receive commendation from Stakeholders.

This is coming on the heels of the visit to the Agency by the Nigerian Ship owners Association (NISA), led by the Lagos State Coordinator, Captain Taiwo Akinpelumi, who stated that the association was pleased with the direction NIMASA is heading towards the full realisation of the Cabotage regime.

He stated that NISA as a body shared 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 could bring to the table their professional expertise in assisting NIMASA realise its full mandate.

“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,” Taiwo stated.

Accordingly, he announced that the body would always work together with NIMASA. “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,” he averred.

The Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside extolled the role of ship owners to the maritime sector, describing them as key players to the sustenance and survival of the Nigerian maritime sector.

He further described the NISA delegation as a set of knowledgeable experts whose wealth of experience would be required in helping the Agency realise its mandates as regards Cabotage implementation enshrined in the NIMASA Act.

Accordingly, the DG stated that the Agency would give the support to the association and would continue to engage in fruitful collaborative meetings geared towards realising a virile maritime industry.

He also assured the body that apart from Cabotage, the Agency would look at areas of having exclusivity for Nigerian ship owners such as lighter-ageand that the Agency was poised to put mechanisms in place to ensure that it works.

“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 included multiple charges in the industry.

Through the new NIMASA Cabotage Compliance Strategy (NCCS) meant to encourage indigenous participation,NIMASA recently suspended waiver on applications on vessel manning for prescribed categories of officers in vessels engaged in coastal trade.