Senate Committee on Marine Transportation led by Senator Sani Ahmed Yerima, representing Zamfara West, Monday visited the head office of the Nigerian Maritime Administration & Safety Agency (NIMASA) in Lagos to look at its 2015 budget performance.
In his welcome address, the Director General of NIMASA, Mr. Haruna Baba Jauro rolled out the constitutional duties of the agency as enshrined in the establishment Act and other extant laws and regulations, saying in the last budget year, NIMASA has passed through rough edges caused by administrative changes on one hand and delays by the ministerial committee on projects evaluation which up till now has not submitted its report. He said NIMASA’s 2015 budget performance would have been better if the report had been released.
Jauro listed the current challenges of the agency to include weak manpower, lack of platform for effective operations, funding need for intervention and equipment for chatting, SAR, and pollution response.
Other problems hindering the performance of the agency include non compliance by shipping companies, falsification of documents to evade taxes, certificate forgery and sea time training for trained officers.
In his recommendation, NIMASA boss called on the law makers to help in the creation of incentives for investments in the maritime sector so as to push up revenue generation for the government. He also revealed that NIMASA had complied with the TSA and remitted all revenue generated to date.
Responding, Senator Yerima said that the visit to NIMASA is part of the oversight functions of the Senate and the major target is to look at and assess the performance of the agency’s 2015 budget. He said the details and information his Committee will get from the visit will assist in thinkering the current 2016 budget proposal now at the Senate.
According to him, “Change has come and everybody and government revenue institutions must key in to save the economy,” stressing that “The major aim of our visit is to have in-depth review and assessment of the operations of NIMASA 2015 financial year so as to plan for the needs and of all projects that will be contained in the 2016 financial year or budget”.
“We ask for cooperation from all of you including the DG especially when we ask for critical information and documents for our work,” Senator Yerima said.
He explained further that “We came here to have interaction with you so that we can have a clear vision on how you managed your 2015 because only that will help us understand your 2016 budget better”.
Senate Committee members in Marine Transportation are about 15 in numbers but about 8 eight were in attendance including the former Governor of Abia State, Senator Theodore Orji and Senator representing Lagos West, Senator Yayi Adeola.