A committee newly formed by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) to review ship registration in Nigeria has promised to redefine the process with a view to ensuring conformity to global standards.
Chairman of the committee, Engr. Emmanuel Ilori, who spoke with SHIPS & PORTS DAILY, shortly after the committee’s inaugural meeting in Lagos on Tuesday, expressed readiness to ease the process of ship registration to make it more business friendly for ship owners.
He said, “Our aim is to ensure that Nigerian ship registry is business friendly both from the ship owner’s perspective and to establish financial confidence to enable people to register their ships in Nigeria registry.
“We seek to ensure that the technical integrity of Nigeria’s ship registry is enhanced to enable the technical growth of the industry and to ensure that Nigeria registry has global acceptability.”
Ilori assured that the committee will regularly interact with relevant stakeholders to aggregate their inputs.
He said the committee is expected to summit an interim report on its findings and recommendations to NIMASA in the next three months.
Director General of NIMASA, Dakuku Peterside had last week set up the committee to examine the status of the Nigeria ship registry in line with international best standards and to ensure that ship registration processes are the same with other global ship registries.
