Maritime Academy Moves to Avert Crisis, Arrests Six Workers
In a bid to avert crisis and carry out the mandate of the federal government, the management of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron, has arrested some staff members of the institution, who it stated, have sworn to derail the management and resist change.
This is just as the academy revealed that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been invited to thoroughly investigate sharp practices and document peddling by some of the workers who have refused to be compliant with the change directive of the federal government.
According to a statement signed by the academy’s Public Affairs unit, the MAN, Oron stated that every staff must key in into the new focus handed down on the new management of the academy.
The statement read: “The House of Representative Committee on Federal Character invited the academy due to irregularities noticed in its employment processes of 2016. The irregularities included the employment of 83 persons illegally employed into the academy by the Registrar of the academy who was acting then as Rector after the demise of the former Rector of the academy.
“Many people were not happy about that employment because 90 per cent of those employed were members of the former Registrar and Acting Rector of the academy Mkpandiok Ante Mkpandiok’s church and 80 per cent were from Oron in Akwa Ibom State. The House Committee on Federal Character now asked the academy to go back and re-present some documents.”
It added: “But what some workers who are still loyal to Mkpandiok did was to smuggle in some documents to embarrass the Rector, Commodore Emma Duja Effedua. They then covered the smuggled documents with a cover letter and brought it to the Rectors table for signing. The Rector insisted on going through the documents, not knowing what they had done, and was shocked to discover documents defending the illegal
The Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dakuku Peterside has stated that the Nigerian Maritime Sector has the capacity to catalyse economic growth.
Also, he gave the assurance that the agency will not rest on its oars until it realises its dream of building a robust maritime sector that will substantially contribute to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the nation’s economy.
He stated this when the City People Media Group bestowed on him the, “Award of Excellent Leadership in Public Service,” at its 21st award ceremony in Lagos. Peterside noted that the award is an indication that the effort of the agency in actualising its mandates of repositioning the sector has not gone unnoticed.
According to him, “This award means a whole lot because it shows that Nigerians acknowledge the efforts that we are making to ensure a cleaner ocean for safe and secure shipping. Also, this will spur us to keep doing our best so as to have a robust maritime sector capable of catalysing and impacting the growth and development of the economy.”
Speaking further, the NIMASA boss disclosed that in the past two years, the agency, for the first time, has been able to put over 250 cadets onboard ocean going vessel to do sea time training, “making our graduates employable and have also been able to make substantial contribution to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF)even as a regulatory agency.”
He also added that NIMASA also went a step further to release the maritime industry forecast, which will serve as a compass to investors for the year 2018 and 2019.
“Today, the whole country appreciates the fact that we are making a difference in the maritime space. We are not only contributing to the economic development of the country, we are not only creating employment for our people, we are giving people opportunities they will remember for a life time,” Peterside said.
While expressing gratitude to stakeholders in the industry for their continuous collaboration and support to the agency, which has helped the agency achieve this feat, he called on them for more support and assured them of better days ahead.
Peterside also applauded the leadership role that the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi has provided for the sector, noting that this has put the agency on its toes in order to meet up with international best practices thereby putting Nigeria on the pedestal of global competitiveness with its counterparts.