By Udeme Clement

Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) has started repositioning to make the maritime sector friendly, thereby attracting more investors into the country.

The Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, said this during a courtesy visit to the Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS),  Hameed Ali.

“In NIMASA there is a new wave of change in the same direction with the Customs. We are focused on delivering on our mandate to promote the participation of indigenous people in shipping in our country, give every Nigerian an opportunity and as well as ensure that our waterways are safe for business to thrive.  In the course of doing our work, we have realized that it is inevitable that we must work with the Customs, that is the major reason for the visit.

“The proposed areas of partnership are; Nigerian Integrated Customs Information System (NICIS), the National Single Window Project and Maritime Security all geared towards enhancing productivity in the sector, transparency, plugging revenue leakages and ensuring maritime security among others.”

In his response, Ali expressed optimism that the renewed partnership between both organs of government will bring about the growth of the sector and the economy as a whole.

“Gone are the days that we feel we should do it alone, today the dynamics have changed, technology has given us a platform whereby we can achieve a lot, share information and also distribution of responsibility, I therefore feel NIMASA is one of the organisations we need to partner with so your coming is to strengthen the already existing relationship,”  the CG said.