Opinion – Page 2 – Shipping World News Magazine

Jul212019 by Asu BeksNo Comments

‘BUHARIWATCH: OUR PRESIDENT IS PROCRASTINATING AGAIN’

Inside Stuff With MARTINS OLOJA This is not a time for sycophancy and political correctness. Nor is it a time to hide some truth in a grave. It is a time to shout it to the nation and the ruling party big men that our president is procrastinating again! So, this is not healthy for Nigeria, a country that a whole continent and indeed the Black race have been waiting for, as a source of pride, inspiration and confidence. This is also a time to repeat a classic in which Winston Churchill in the late 1936 warned in the House of Commons, ‘The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences’. Oh yes, this is a time to lament the procrastination, half measures, soothing...

Jan112018 by Asu BeksNo Comments

Mad rush for deep seaports: Where are the cargoes?

Opinion

In March 2006, the nation's seaports were concessioned to private Terminal Operators after a bidding process that saw the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) letting go of its traditional cargo handling functions to become the port landlord. In the last 12 years, the privatisation programme in the ports sector has been credited with taking our yearly cargo throughput from 35 million TEUs to about 80 million, leading to unprecedented challenges at the Apapa and Tin Can Island ports. In the intervening years, there has been a gradual shift by governments and investors to invest in deep seaports in the country. This is to further broaden the shipping horizon so that bigger vessels can call at our ports with economies of scale. By definition, a deep seaport is one that has the capability to acco...

Jan112018 by Asu BeksNo Comments

Sea time training for Nigerian Cadets: Counting our losses to foreign shipowners

Opinion

When the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP) was introduced in 2008, it was meant to develop a pool of trained cadets who would man our vessels especially with the coming on stream of the Cabotage Act 2003. The thinking then was that with the production of certified seafarers, the dearth of seafarers arising from old age and death would be a thing of the past. According to the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, so far, about 2, 500 cadets have been trained from the NSDP excluding those trained from the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron, Akwa Ibom State and other approved maritime schools within the country. Recently, at a well-attended meeting in Lagos, the Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside announced that it was sending out ...

Jan112018 by Asu BeksNo Comments

Maritime University, Okerenkoko: Is Malami playing the fifth columnist?

Opinion

The Niger Delta region seems to be constantly at war with itself. Whilst every region within the Nigerian space reinvent themselves to better their future, our people constantly throw brickbats at one another in order to score cheap political points. At the slightest opportunity, politicians use the youth of their domain to feather their political nests. The latest season of anomie concerns the memo emanating from the office of the Attorney General of the Federation, AGF, and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami. In the controversial memo to the National Assembly, he is alleged to have urged them to situate the "correct location" of the proposed Nigerian Maritime University, in Okerenghigho rather than Okerenkoko. The former belongs to the Itsekiris while the latter belongs to Ijaws. ...

Dec312017 by Our EditorNo Comments

NIMASA Under Peterside: Paradise Lost

Opinion

By Ubon Akpan At the Advent of this administration which was sold to Nigerians as a one with a reformist agenda, Dr. Dakuku Peterside was among the very set of political appointees announced by President Mohammadu Buhari. Which invariably means Mr. President had very little doubts and more trust on the capability of the man who flew the All Progressive Congress (APC) flag at the Rivers State gubernatorial elections as a capable hand strong enough to interpret the party’s reformist agenda at the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency(NIMASA), a strategic economic arm of the federal government. However, two years down the line, operators and watchers of Nigeria’s maritime industry have been left wondering what has happened to the giant maritime parastatal, which when...

Dec312017 by Asu BeksNo Comments

Celebrating Failure?

Business, Opinion

You were appointed to change the fortunes of NIMASA by President Muhammadu Buhari in May 2016, having lost the Governorship Election in Rivers State to Mr Project. Rather than do the job for which you were appointed, you decided to embark on a global jamboree unprecedented in the history of any government CEO. As at the last count you have made no fewer than 50 foreign trips in your 18 months in office. Put that in financial context ,and we should be talking about millions of dollars of tax payers money in estacodes, flight tickets and other incidentals. Is that how you would have governed Rivers State if you had been elected Governor? You lost IMO Council seat as a sitting AMAA Chair after an over N300m expenditure by the Nigerian delegation. You also in May this year blew N500m...

Dec152017 by Asu BeksNo Comments

How half-baked administrators are killing the maritime industry

Business, Opinion

The maritime industry in Nigeria contributes about 90% by volume of the goods that come into the country and by value, it is the third largest contributor to our nation's coffers after the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Nigeria Customs Service. Since the early 70s, government has invested heavily in marine infrastructure in the sector to bring about port efficiency and high productivity. At a point in our nation's history, there was need to build a brand new port and government set about building the Tin Can Island Port in 1977 to take care of the cement armada of the late 70s. The agencies in the sector which are funded by government include the NPA, the Nigerian Shippers Council, the Nigerian Maritime Administration & Safety Agency and the National Inland Wate...

Dec142017 by Our EditorNo Comments

The Agony of Seafarers

Opinion

by Egodor Cementina The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) was established with the major responsibility of developing indigenous capacity for shippers, training, certification and welfare of seafarers. Specifically, the agency was created, among others, to provide regulations that are related to Nigerian Shipping, Maritime Labour, Safety and Security in our waters. NIMASA, as the apex maritime agency, has failed in almost all of its duties from the administration of the activities to the clearance and security of the seafarers. Stakeholder's have had cause to lampoon the Apex Maritime Regulatory Agency over its handling of issues concerning seafarers. Recently the Nigerian Merchant Navy and Water Transport Senior Officers accused the agency of tardine...

Dec142017 by Our EditorNo Comments

Rotimi Amaechi is an Ignoramus and Here Are The Facts to Prove it

Opinion

-By Reno Omokri It is quite possible that Rotimi Amaechi is losing his marbles otherwise why else would he be asking former President Jonathan to account for the $65 billion that former Olusegun Obasanjo left in the Excess Crude Account when there was never any such amount? Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria who served under his tenure, Professor Charles Soludo, are both alive and journalists can take advantage of the Freedom of Information Act signed into Law by former Jonathan to verify from them if there was ever any $65 billion in the Excess Crude Account. Rotimi Amaechi is a notorious ignoramus who speaks without thinking and it is suspected that either he is speaking under the influence of drugs or he is going senile. ...

Dec102017 by Our EditorNo Comments

$100 billion Ship building Fund: Ship Owners may drag Amaechi before Buhari

Breaking News, Business, Maritime, Opinion

The Nigerian Ship Owners Association (NSOA) is set to drag the Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, before President Muhammad Buhari over the refusal of the Nigerian Maritime Administration & Safety Agency (NIMASA) to commence the disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF). The end of year dinner of the NSOA last week in Lagos almost degenerated into a brawl when Engr. Greg Ogbeifun challenged the minister to show them where he derived his powers to hold back the CVFF. The funds are about $100 billion. At the dinner, Amaechi had boasted that as long as he remained the minister of transportation, not one Kobo of the CVFF would be disbursed. The CVFF currently domiciled in NIMASA has become an issue of controversy as successive managements in the agency have ...