By Olubunmi ISOKPEHI, Lagos
Director General of The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr Bashir Jamoh, has clarified the controversial issue of disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) which has been nagging for some years. Jamoh said, “The money is still intact in the Treasury Single Account TSA of the Central Bank but there are technical and political issues attached to the disbursement of the fund.”
Jamoh made this assertion during a parley with the Journalists on the agency’s achievements in the last one year of its activities, and what it hopes to achieve in 2022.
Speaking on the technicalities on the disbursement of the CVFF fund, Jamoh asserted, “Technical issue is made from the CVFF guideline and act itself, since 2003 till date, a lot of things transformed the laws and guidelines of CVFF, and making a lot of technicalities involved.”
His words:. “Let me observe here that there has been a lot of misconception about the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund. The money is intact at the TSA of the Central Bank. Nobody has touched it.”
while explaning political aspect of it, the DG said,. “The greatest problem of Nigerian leaders have been decision making, sometimes they put sentiments, religion and so many things, at the end of the day they will not make any decisions, and if they dont take decisions, things will go haywire”
For the port state control functions of the agency, the NIMASA Boss disclosed that, “429 foreign vessels were boarded to ensure that each vessel maintained safety, pollution standards while at Nigeria ports and waters.”
He continued, “The figure of vessels recorded under port state implementation for the year under review stands at 675 which is 24.2 % higher than the 510 vessels inspections carried out in 2020,”
According to him, the achievement of this record is an indication of the agency’s seriousness in terms of flag state survey despite the global pandemic challenges since 2020.
The Director General gave a breakdown of the performance of the seafarers regarding the officers cadre in 2020 examination and certification, says 829 sat for examination while total number of 264 of candidates passed and certified, which formed a percentage of 32%. While, the total number of candidates failed is 565, forming a percentage of 68%. The Total number of certificates revalidated for 2021 is 246.
The NIMASA Boss lamented number of failures recorded among Nigerian seafarers who sat for Certificate of Competency examinations in the year 2020.
He words: “You can see a very serious and negative figures in terms of our students seating for professional examinations of different certificates amounting to 68% failure.”
Adding that, “The agency is liaising with various institutions to see how we can address this gap. There are so many factors attached to this, and we hope that before the middle of 2022, we would overcome these challenges”
The DG reaffirmed, “In 2020, Officers examination, total number that sat for that examination was 610, and total number that passed was only 251, forming a percentage of 41% pass, while 359 failed, amounting to 59% failure.”
He stated, “The total number of certificates revalidated was 132, this means that in 2021, we had 246, a considerable increase as being recorded.”
Adding, “For Officers ratings, the total number that sat for the exams were 1,251, out of this, 926 passed, representing 74% passed. The total number of candidates that failed is 325, representing 26% failure.”
He recall, “The examination for ratings in 2021, the total number of students who sat for the exams are 1,327, this is a sharp increase against the 2020 figure of 1,251.
The total number of candidates passed is 990 forming also 74% passed.
Total number of candidates failed is 337 with a percentage of failure of 26%”
He said that online seafarers certificates of Competency verification platform has been reactivated, which has helped in reducing the forgery of Nigerian certificates and enhanced the employment of Nigerians in the maritime industry.
