The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency has announced a plan to introduce a programme of zero tolerance to non-compliance with maritime safety and security standards in order to eliminate substandard shipping in the country.

The agency made this announcement in a communique issued at the end of the harmonised NIMASA stakeholders’ interactive session in Lagos.

The session, according to the agency, was held with the aim of obtaining stakeholders’ feedback on relevant issues and aggregating their consensus for the effective implementation and governance of NIMASA’s operational mandates towards achieving the objective of a blue economy.

The agency stated that the processes of the Nigerian Ship Registration Office were being automated and would be available online and real-time for ship owners and prospective owners without undue delays.

NIMASA reiterated its commitment to the maintenance of a clean and pristine Nigerian marine environment in line with applicable international conventions, adding that it had put in place the appropriate administrative regime to achieve this.

It resolved that in line with the blue economy initiative, NIMASA would in future subject all policies to the sustainability test and every process that failed the test would either be amended or eliminated.

The communique read in part, “There is an urgent need for NIMASA to engage relevant agencies with a view to initiating measures designed to develop passenger, containerised, wet and dry cargo transportation in Nigeria’s internal waterways.

“The calculation of NIMASA’s three per cent levy on all wet cargoes shall be based on freight tonne, which is cubic measurement and in line with the provisions of the MARPOL Convention, all tankers operating in Nigerian waters are required to have in place adequate and sufficient insurance cover to minimise the risk of losses sequel to oil spills and tanker accidents.”