Senators give NIMASA pass mark over 2013 budget implementation

Chairman of Senate Committee on Marine Transport, Hajia Zaynab Kure, yesterday expressed satisfaction with the success level of the budget implementation of the Nigerian Maritime Safety Administration Agency (NIMASA).
Hajia Kure disclosed this at the agency’s headquarters after listening extensively to the detailed explanation by the Director General of the agency, Patrick Akpobolokemi on the project the agency embarked upon during the oversight visit of the senators on the performance of the 2013 budget.
Kure said after her committee members listened to the NIMASA DG, she believed they would want to park their bags and paper and leave the agency having satisfied with what they have heard.
She said, “with your explanation, we felt you are comfortably doing well and we believe that you are happy doing what you are doing.”
The former Niger State First Lady however said that the committee members were in the agency to appraise the budget of 2013 in preparation for receiving the 2014 budget which she believed cannot be done without background information and matching paper about what had been done with the 2013 budget.
Kure also advised the agency to have a comprehensive list of workers in the agency, calling for the readiness of the names before the committee comes back for the 2014 budget.
Her words: “During your speech, you have talked about how staff are being motivated in order to get the best out of them but there should be a nominal role, This is important and I will want your nominal role to be ready before 2014 budget appraisal. We want to see the list of people promoted and those awaiting promotion. We are not only intrested in capital budget but also in recurrent expenditure,” she said.
Earlier speaking, Akpobolokemi gave details about the ongoing projects embarked upon by the agency in the year under review.
Akpobolokemi aid that the agency had given the four universities where they introduced maritime institutes what is needed to operate and the institutes had been in full swing operation except for the University of Nigeria Nsukka where the internal wrangling in the university affected the take off of the institutes.
He also spoke about the Nigeria Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP) which he believed had been improving the agency manpower development drive.

The NIMASA boss also said that the agency had good working relationship with the millitary and various service chiefs and other security agencies that could help in securing the country water ways.
“we have awarded contract for the installation of radars and GNPS in our entire domain, and in the next few months, we should be able to capture vessels that operate in our maritime domain and that will increase our anti piracy war, oil theft campaign and help stop all illegalities in our maritime domain,” he said.