NIMASA pledges to partner BoI in maritime finance
Lagos -- The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, and the Bank of Industry, BoI, have pledged collaboration to raise the tempo of maritime investments and shipping development financing.
Making the pledge at the maiden edition of the Nigeria Maritime Finance Fair put together in Lagos by the Association of Maritime Journalists of Nigeria, AMJON, BoI also disclosed it has disbursed over $82 million out of a pool of $200 million funds set aside by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring
Board, NCDMB, for investment windows in the maritime industry and the oil and gas sector.
The Director-General of NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, while lauding BoI financial window, expressed the agency’s desire to partner the bank for an efficient synergy in providing the industry with needed financial windows and intermediation, especially with regards to Cabotage Vessels Financing Fund, CVFF, which, he said, is still receiving legislative amendments at the National Assembly.
Dakuku, who was represented by the agency’s Director for Cabotage Services, Mr. Victor Egejuru, gave insight into additional efforts by the agency to deepen the scale of maritime industry growth and also raise capacity building, just as he announced plans by NIMASA to train another batch of 300 cadets under the National Seafarers Development Programme, NSDP.
According to Peterside, the new set of cadets will be trained in three universities in India, believed to have indicated interest to offer sea time training for beneficiary cadets.
Peterside also gave insight into ongoing efforts to rehabilitate cadets in earlier batches of the NSDP programme sent to the Philippines, for a lifeline to progress in their training, obtain their sea time training and move on to the next level.
He said, “Arrangement is being made at present to make payments for more than 300 seafarers in addition to what we already have before. So, efforts are being made due to lack of vessels internationally, so it is an international problem, not a localised problem.
“Because of the nature of sea time training they gave to Nigerian cadets, NIMASA said no, we need them to be properly trained. So most of them have been moved to other institutions away from the Philippines like Arab Academy Egypt and the UK, and presently there are other universities coming on board especially those in India. There are three universities in India to also offer sea time training.”