Fidelia Okafor.

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has commenced 24 hour surveillance of the nation’s waters to enhance security of vessels and safety of cargoes.

Director General of NIMASA, Dr Dakuku Peterside said at a press conference in Lagos where he gave the overview of the agency’s activities in the last 12 months.

Dr Peterside said the new regime backed by updated technology, captures all vessels in the Nigerian maritime domain irrespective of the weather condition.

Peterside said Nigeria through NIMASA’s operations can now do profiling of vessels on waters day and night which also enhances response time to any form of maritime emergency.

” I am glad to inform you that NIMASA now operates a 24 hour surveillance system which captures all vessels in the Nigerian maritime domain irrespective of weather conditions.

” We can now achieve complete profile analysis which includes the flag, registered owner, operator, beneficial owner and movements over a specified period.

” This system enables us to take very swift decisions in real time , on any targeted ship. Currently all offshore areas of interest have been electronically cordoned off with a guard zone via our surveillance system and we can at once view live feed (activities) especially in the oil fields and on crude oil platforms” he said

Peterside added that the agency had taken steps to enhance its revenue collection through billing of pipelines and identifying untapped resources.

Within the last one year, the agency exploited statutory provision of sea protection levy gazette with billing of pipelines, oil rigs and Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO) facilities.