NAN-H-58
Standard
By Lucy Nwachukwu
Abuja, Jan. 15, 2017 (NAN) The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has assured that efforts are being made by the agency to ensure that no sub-standard vessel is brought into the country.
Dr Dakuku Peterside, the Director-General of the agency, announced this at a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
Cue in audio (Peterside on standard vessels)
“Under our flag state function, we are doing everything humanly possible to ensure that no sub-standard vessel gets into our national register or our flag register.
“And to do that, we conduct appropriate survey and ensure that all the necessary checks are in place.
“We have a moral authority backed by law to ensure that no sub-standard vessel under our port state control function calls at our ports and if they do, we will detain them in line with international regulations to which we are party.
“And so, we have enhanced our ship surveillance certification duties in terms of our port state function.
“ I think that we are boarding more vessels in terms of percentage that we boarded previously
“And so, if we board these vessels, conduct our regular checks, we should be able to identify if any vessel is substandard.
“But I can bet you, no substandard vessel can call on our port because we are very vigilant and we are very diligent in the performance of our port state function.’’
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On factors that assert a vessel as being substandard, the director-general said, “there are many things that can make a ship substandard, right from the hull, the engine or even manning issues.
He said environmental response was reason enough to call a ship substandard and detain the ship.
Peterside explained that there was a whole checklist agreed to by International Maritime Organizations (IMO) for which countries were party to.
“For example, we are now phasing out single haul vessels globally, it was identified that single haul vessels pose danger to the environment.
“And the IMO in one of its resolutions agreed that by 2015 every single hauled vessels will be phased out.
“However, for developing countries, it was extended that developing countries can extend theirs to 2020 under conditions.
“And those countries are expected to come up with conditionalities for anybody to continue to use single hulled vessels.
“In any case 2020 is three years away from now, so there are many conditions that can make a ship as substandard,’’ he added.
Peterside said that several vessels had been detained in the past year for manning issues, for environmental issues, certification issues or lack of compliance of some provisions of the law.
On sanctions, he explained that the idea of the detention was not because they were expected to pay fine.
“Yes there are cases where they are expected to pay fine but most importantly it is for them to rectify whatever is the fault so it doesn’t do maximum damage to the environment,” he said. (NAN)
LCN/YEE/IA
Edited by Emmanuel Yashim/Idris Abdulrahman
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