Reps Charges NIMASA On Performance

The House of Representatives Committee on Marine Transport has called on the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, (NIMASA)  to put up the best performance to ensure that the Nigerian maritime industry is the best in African sub-region.

House committee chairman, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi made the call on Monday at the NIMASA resource centre in Lagos while on three-day working tour of the agency with his members.

He assured that the committee will equally do everything possible to assist the agency to achieve this goal.

Ugwuanyi noted that the committee’s visit was part of its constitutional responsibility to carry out its oversight functions.

“Principally, we are looking at the capital project of NIMASA, including the public-private partnership project. We are not taking a decision here, and l will appeal to you to allow us get to Abuja, where this committee will deliberate on our findings, and thereafter issue a report that will guide us during budget deliberations and we will also forward our recommendations to the general house”

Earlier in a welcome address, the Director-General of NIMASA, Ziakede Patrick Akpobolokemi assured the committee that the agency will not rest but do everything humanly possible to satisfy the aspiration of the committee, the government and Nigerians by stopping all illegalities going on in the maritime sector.

According to him, they are more of regulators from their mandate, that the committee approved a lot of capital projects for the agency geared towards improving the maritime industry in the country.

“We have carried out preliminary work on the site, survey plan has been drawn, to develop capacity building, we are about awarding contracts for consultancy,” he said.

He told the committee that the agency got approval from the committee or the National Assembly for the maritime institutes adding that work has already started.

He spoke on the dredging at the resource centre and the jetty, adding that work is ongoing and in a mater of few months, it should be completed.