The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), through it Director- General Mr. Peter Dakuku has listed what he described as a transformative way that would make ports in Africa to be globally competitive.
Which includes investment in world class infrastructure; strengthening of regulatory frameworks; enhancing institutional cooperation, implementation of one-stop portals like the national single window; and adequate investment in human capital. He stated this while delivering a paper on the significance of maritime regulations and competitiveness of African ports at the conference on port development, which took place in Accra Ghana.
His words: “African ports have fallen far behind our global peers on key performance indicators. Cargo spends nearly three weeks on average in Sub-Saharan African ports, compared to less than a week in large ports in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. We are below the global average on three key productivity measures of ports: gross moves per hour, berth moves per hour and man-hours per move”.
He noted that for port operations on the continent to experience appreciable improvement, agencies in the port community must work together to implement integrated and sustainable solutions to the identified challenges.
The NIMASA DG restated the agency’s commitment to strengthening the capacity of ports in Nigeria and enable competitiveness on the African continent via the effective implementation of the Merchant Shipping Act, NIMASA and the Cabotage Act, by ensuring that regulating the maritime sector with the use of these instruments does not hinder efficiency and negatively affect business operations in the ports.
Speaking further, he said that NIMASA has upgraded its surveillance system to 24 hours and can consequently monitor all vessels in the Nigerian Maritime Domain at all times.
He also disclosed that the integration of the Agency’s system with the Nigerian Integrated Customs Information System (NICIS) was part of efforts to forge the partnership with key industry stakeholders to enhance efficiency in the Nigerian maritime sector.
