The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Maritime and Ports Authority (MPA) of Singapore have held a bilateral meeting to seek areas of collaboration between the two maritime regulators. The meeting was held on the sidelines of the Maritime Regulators Forum holding in Singapore.
Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside met with his counterpart at MPA, Andrew Tan where they both pledged to collaborate for the benefit of both countries.
Peterside who told Tan that Nigeria has huge maritime potentials that have remained untapped also called on Singapore investors to take advantage of the reforms in Nigeria’s maritime sector to invest in the country.
He requested partnership with the Singaporean authorities in various areas including technology acquisition for monitoring of the waterways, capacity building of personnel, support to upgrade maritime infrastructure a well as acquisition of more ocean going vessels for indigenous operators.
He assured Singapore investors of NIMASA’s commitment to focus on effective enforcement of all International Maritime Organisation (IMO) instruments to which Nigeria is a signatory as well as build the requisite capacity of personnel and infrastructure for the execution of its mandate
Clean and safe oceans and security of ships operating in Nigerian waters, according to him, remain a top priority.
The MPA boss, Andrew Tan who described Nigeria as the new destination for future maritime investments also expressed surprise that there was no institutional relationship between Nigeria and Singapore despite the fact that Singapore is the second busiest and first transshipment port in the world and Nigeria a major maritime hub in West and Central Africa.
The MPA chief executive further said that Nigeria can benefit from Singapore’s well developed and excess maritime capacity while Singapore can benefit from Nigeria’s huge market.
He invited NIMASA to take advantage of the several programmes available in MPA Academy of Singapore to build capacity of its personnel while also leveraging on Singapore’s ship building and maintenance expertise to get many Nigeria maritime players own their own vessels. He also suggested a new level of cooperation between the two parties at IMO meetings.
The DG of NIMASA who is in Singapore on MPA’s invitation is scheduled to address the Forum of Maritime Regulators on “Indispensible Shipping: Meeting the Regulatory Requirements” at the ongoing Singapore Maritime Week on Wednesday.
While speaking with newsmen at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Anuja shortly before departing for Singapore, Peterside had suggested a legal framework that prescribed stiff sanction, vigilant military-led patrol and better intelligence gathering network to tackle sea piracy in Nigeria.
He said tackling rising cases of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea requires multi-stakeholders’ approach.
The NIMASA chief noted that the activities of pirates stiffed shipping and by extension, commerce which was a major driver of global economy.
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