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Nigeria: Nimasa Partners U.S. Navy On Surveillance |
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Friday, 12 March 2010 |
 The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) is partnering with the United States Navy in monitoring vessels within and outside the Nigerian waters. The Director General of NIMASA, Mr Temisan Omatseye,
said this on Monday in Lagos while conducting a delegation of the U.S
Navy round the Operations room of the agency at the Maritime Resource
Centre (MRCC).
Omatseye said the assignment of monitoring vessels had been a 24-hour
operation, adding that the partnership allowed both parties to monitor
vessels on anchorage with the Automatic Identification System (AIS) on.
"With the AIS on, we would be able to see all vessels doing legal and
illegal transfer of products," he said. saying.
He said many ship owners had, however, formed the habit of switching off
their AIS and this made it difficult for the agency to get signals from
such vessels especially when such vessels ran into distress.
He said whereas it was mandatory for ship owners to put on their AIS
system. Omatseye said most of the vessels on the nation's waters are
internationally-flagged vessels, adding that "sometimes we are not able
to track them if they put off their AIS."
The director-general also said NIMASA is working together with the
Nigerian navy to protect the nation's waters against any attack.
He said the agency had also installed the Long Range Identification
Tracking (LRIT) system to monitor vessels which designated Nigeria as
their port of entry.
On the incident of ships swept ashore by storm on Feb. 14 2010, the
director-general said the issue of weather was statutorily covered by
the Nigerian Meteorological services and not NIMASA.
He said ship owners should access the meteorological services portal
where they would be able to have weather forecast for at least the next
10 days.
NIMASA said it gave warnings, made broadcast and talked to few vessels
that sent signals before the storm and it requested that the crew be
transferred into other vessels and this was done.
Omatseye said NIMASA had started removing the remaining 14 vessels
washed ashore, as two had been removed by their owners. He said letters
were written to the owners of the vessels, adding that even three weeks
after there was no response.
The NIMASA Chief said that two of the vessels being removed had already
broken. He said the consequencies of not removing the vessels on time
would turn the rest into wrecks and change the eco-flow of the
environment.
On complaints by the Indigenous Ship Owners Association of Nigeria
(ISAN) about the short notice, he said, "the Merchant Shipping Act is
clear on the issue of notice which the agency gave the ship owners and I
would not wait until the ship owners go and look for money to remove
the vessels."
Omatseye said NIMASA would hold onto the vessels after removing them
from the beach until the owners paid for the services. If they do not
pay, we (NIMASA) would sell the vessels and recoup the money spent in
removing the vessels, the Director-General said.
The Commander, Africa Partnership Station (APS), Commodore Cindy Thebaud
said what NIMASA had been doing on maritime safety and security had
been impressive.
Thebaud said the relationship between NIMASA and the U.S Navy was
improving.
Source: Daily Champion
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