ABOUT one hand a half years when Mr Temisan Omatseye emerged as the Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) , the consensus in the maritime industry is that he has within that short period of time contributed immensely to the development of the sector and by extension the economy.

He has not only utilised his wealth of experience as a maritime operator before his appointment to turn around the fortunes of the agency but has through his sterling performance justified his appointment by the Federal Government.

Omatseye has undoubtedly manifested his deep knowledge of the maritime sector and his ability to effectively manage men and materials through his contributions in the areas of  capacity building, search and rescue, cabotage, ship registration, anti-piracy, staff welfare, security and safety on water ways, removal of wrecks and derelicts and manpower development, among others.

Stakeholders in the maritime industry said the fact that the Director General is a man of vision, coupled with his decision to set a target for himself through the five – point agenda he put in place when he mounted the saddle at Nimasa has assisted him to transform the industry as the leader in Africa .

The focus include the development of a skilled maritime labour and manpower, ensuring that the agency’s coast guard functions are in alignment with those of other security agencies, making Nimasa’s role to meet stakeholders’ expectations, developing effective maritime administration, security and safety system and driving growth  in inland water trade.

Indeed, transport watchers say the  fact that he has placed a lot of emphasis on human resource development and coupled with its style of management which is participatory in nature – taking its officers to confidence in decision making process and developing profound interest in his staff welfare has helped greatly in the strides he has made in the agency.

For a leader who believes so much in capacity building, when he assumed office last year the first step he took was to organise a retreat for the management staff and other cadres purposely to re-orientate them and make them key in to the direction of his new management.

The good working relationship between the Director General and the executive directors , namely Mr Adeniran Aderogba,Executive Director, Administration and Finance; Ibrahim Zelani , Executive Director, Maritime Labour and Cabotage Services; Mr Ishaku Shekarau, Executive Director, Maritime Safety and Shipping Development and other directors has also  assisted in boosting the management’s success.

Perhaps, the fact that the Director General embarked on the restructuring and re-engineering of the agency, a novel step in the annals of the organisation has made it to get the best out of its workforce as well as improve on its efficiency in the performance of its statutory functions.

Also, one of his first assignments at the agency was to plug all loopholes in revenue generation as well as sharpen sources of revenue generation which have otherwise been dormant.This has markedly increased the agency’s revenue profile as well as equipped it better to carry out its statutory functions.

Not one to condone laziness, truancy or lateness to work and being a workaholic himself , he has adopted the culture of paying surprise visits to different units of the agency to ensure that workers are prompt at their places of work.

A very prudent manager, Omatseye has in the past couple of months also demonstrated this attribute at Nimasa with the way and manner he has maximised the use of the Maritime Resource Centre at KiriKiri in Lagos, especially for knowledge based purposes which include hosting of various national and sub-regional based maritime seminars and workshops, which would have gulped money if organised in hotels.

The management has placed a lot of importance on search and rescue. .This has made it to step up the functions of the search and rescue helicopter to include that of surveillance .The plan is now to have infra-red camera mounted on it so that it will be flying all over anchorage, taking pictures and sending them to the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC).

It has also responded adequately to emergency within the nation’s waters by carrying out vital search and rescue operations, which include the salvage of four out of 16 beached vessels at Light House East Mole Takwa Bay , in Lagos , and the Medical evacuation of a Russian Sea Captain.

The agency has also been able to rescue 400 people stranded aboard ‘MT Liliana’ as well as 164 passengers aboard ‘MV Salam’ a Sao Tome and Principe Cargo ship.

As part of measures to facilitate search and rescue operations, the management has also established six functional global maritime distressed safety system (GMDSS) bases along the nation’s coastal lines.
They include Lagos, Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC), Lagos Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) , Oron, Escravos, Bonny and Lokoja Rescue Sub-centres.

Additionally, it has successfully sensitized Cameroun, Gabon and DR Congo on the need to establish search and rescue sub-centres in their countries as well as integrated the GMDSS with RMAC/ automated identification system (AIS) for search and rescue operations.

The agency has within the past one and a half years adopted various measures to combat pollution on Nigerian waters .These include the carrying out of the stakeholders’ review of the Draft Regulations of Civil Liability and International Oil Pollution Convention (IOPC) fund.

Under the management of Omatseye, it has  produced the international maritime organisation (IMO) approved ship board oil pollution emergency manual and issuance of civil liability certificates, produced national guidelines on waste emanating from vessels as well as put in place effective monitoring and regulatory system for ship scrapping activities.

It has also hosted sub-regional training / workshops on the legal implementation of ballast water management convention in Africa.

In order to increase employment opportunities for the youths as well as make it possible for Nigeria to amass a pool of well trained seafarers which would in future man its cabotage trade and ocean going vessels, Nimasa under Omatseye has in recent time improved on  the National Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP) commenced by its management.

Under the new arrangement, it allocated 10 extra cadets for any state that has fully signed up for the programme while it has provided a window for private sector and agencies involvement in the scheme on 60 to 40 funding ratio.

Already states like Benue , Ebonyi, Ekiti and Ondo, among others, have contributed many cadets to the scheme who have undergone training in reputable maritime institutions in India and Egypt  while others like Kaduna, Kogi, Niger and Adamawa have also signed up for the programme.

The cabotage Act which implementation has suffered a set back before the advent of the Omatseye’s management has now received a new lease of life.Consequently, Nimasa is set to commence the disbursement of the cabotage vessel finance fund(CVFF) to assist indigenous shipping companies to purchase vessels.

Mr. Goddy OGHENEJAKPOR, a commentator on national issues, writes from Lagos.