Fregene Omatseye George, Chief Executive Officer of Burston Marine and Security Services Limited, manufactures barges and other watercrafts for security institutions spoke with Godwin Oritse on the challenges facing his this sector of the maritime industry Excerpts

Can you tell us what inspired you into this line of marine business.?

I will say I was born into the marine world, in the sense that my parents are from Warri South, North and Southwest LGA. Then my dad Late Prince Benjamin Fregene after working in the maritime sector for sometime saw that most of these equipments can be built here in Nigeria and thus started the initiative which we the children always join him after school. From there I created my own BURSTON MARINE & SECURITY SERVICES LIMITED where we build vessels, tug boats, barges, lay barge, multicast, self propelled. Patrol boats in steal and aluminum. We have done some maintenance for the Nigerian Navy also

How do you source your raw materials.?

We get our materials ( plate sheets, H beam, Angle iron, Electrodes’, gear box, propeller, and furniture materials) from importers here in Nigeria. We are looking forward for our steel companies to be in operation because I believe the only thing that are not imported in this our industry is the propane gas and oxygen

How do players in the maritime industry perceive and how have they accepted this initiative knowing how crazy Nigerians are about imported items.

Players in the maritime industry are coping well and have fully embrace our local built equipments in all area of the industry and we must give kudos to Nimasa for their support and enforcement strict compliance from us the local builders and the local and foreign companies.

Do you service only operators in Nigeria or do have clients outside the country by way of exporting your services.?

We also render services to international companies operating here in Nigeria but we look forward to exporting our services. Buy building for foreigners to buy to overseas for their own use.

How has the current inflation and depreciation of the Naira affected your business in any way.
Inflation and the depreciation of the Naira is the toughest challenges we are having in the industry at the moment because as we speak prices are doubled from the past 4 months and is giving us serious issues and disappointment and couple with the bad roads in the country.

What role does NIMASA play in your business?

The NIMASA is playing major role in our business in many areas
a) their registration, inspection and certification of our equipments are improving over the years
They improve a lot also on the monitoring system of our equipments which if installed on ur vessels YOU can see your equipment from your phone and the introduction of compulsory MMSI number, Call Signs, AIS and other communication gadgets has really helped a lot to secure our water ways but we also look forward for us to have our International Maritime Organization, IMO numbers on our locally produced equipments

Can you let in the number of watercraft you produce annually?

On our own, we produced minimum of 10 equipments every year for ourselves for rentage and outright purchases to keep the company busy and running. But with demands from clients to build for them with their specifications that we can do as addition to our production.

Can your products compete internationally?

Yes of course we look forward in competing internationally that is why we are in business we want to go internationally let the world know that we can do better here in Nigeria, Africa we can export our products in all areas. But then we have to start producing most of the material like the plates, high beams, Angle irons, electrods even engine and gear box locally here in Nigeria and we have the natural resources. This will boost up employment in all these areas and creating more job opportunities and help strengthen our economy.