Godwin Oritse

THE International Maritime Organisation Council has agreed to provide  £500,000 ($740,000) from its Technical Co-operation Fund reserves to bailout the financially troubled World Maritime University.

WMU has run into financial problems due to the withdrawal of funding from some donors and a lack of new sources of financing to replace the lost funding.

This has resulted in substantial budget shortfalls this year and next year, which if not remedied could threaten the future of the institution.

Under the agreement, the funds of up to a maximum of £500,000, will be transferred in two tranches, one  each for the next two years.
But this short-term funding is not sufficient to resolve the longer-term funding issues for the university which is based in Sweden, a relatively high cost country, making the WMU expensive to maintain.

It is still not certain that sufficient long-term funding can be sourced to keep the university operating in its present form.
IMO Secretary-Gene-ral, Efthimios Mitropou-los, who is Chancellor of WMU, submitted proposals to the Council and Assembly on the future, long-term financial sustainability of the WMU.

A number of proposals are under consideration to provide long-term financial security, including a levy on IMO members, but no decision has been made.

A correspondence group has been set up, led by Sweden, to consider the various proposals regarding the long-term sustainability of the university.

It will report to the next IMO Council meeting this month when the situation will be reviewed. But it is not clear if any final decisions will be taken at that meeting.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Alternate Permanent Representative at the International Maritime Organisation, IMO, Mr. Willy Azu, denied the fact that the university was having any form of financial crisis.

Azu who spoke to Vanguard at the on-going regional seminar on the amendments of the Standard of Training Certification and Watch-keeping, STCW, said that the institution is trying to manage its limited resources to achieve the best result.

He explained that every country is having financial challenges due the global economic crunch and the WMU is not isolated from the crisis.

He said: “The World Maritime University is not having any funding crisis. Listen to me. I am a Board Member of that institution so if anyone should know I should be in a position to know.

“WMU is not in financial crisis. What we are trying to do is to manage the limited resources we have in WMU to achieve the best results.
“Every country, every individual is having challenges because of the economic crunch. So what we do is to re-assess, re-evaluate and then move forward, there is no crisis at all. “It is an institution that has come to stay and will stand the test of time.”