By Seun Ibiyemi
Despite Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) investment on the Blue Economy project, Maritime security expert said the sector contributes less than three per cent to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Speaking to Nigerian NewDirect, Rear Admiral Francis Akpan said that Maritime security is becoming a major issue from statistics and Maritime sub sector should contribute more to the GDP than what is contributing right now.
According to him, “This means we have more opportunities yet to be tapped. We are losing on fisheries aspect, cargoes and so on, because of laws. Shipper owners now prefer neighbouring ports as point of destination for their goods, which means that there is something wrong with our tariffs.”
He urged the government to partner with the private sector to implement policies needed to drive the sector contributing to GDP.
He explained further that, “On the side of security, government agencies are pulling up the string but more needs to be done.
“Various maritime security sector agents or institutions like NIMASA, Navy, Marine police, Customs, immigration need to up their game because we have begun to monitor with the advent of the Falcon Eye that the Nary launched, we now watch onscreen what is happening at sea 24 hours but that is not enough.
“We need more platforms, the Nary needs to be encouraged on its 10-year plan which is to have 20 helicopters, 8 OPVs, Offshore patrol vessels so that we can launch them at sea against offensive people like sea robbers, pirates and other offensive act, trans-shippers. These are people that transfer cargoes at sea, they are the worst offenders because they are leaking the economy.
“They are not paying, they transfer cargoes from big ships to small ships and these small ships dock into town without you knowing. These are criminals and they are being tracked now because of the platform the president commissioned, but we need to have more so as to respond faster against the offensive acts.
“The leakages are too much, the policies are getting weird. We are losing to other ports like Benin and Cameron, so our policies need to be looked into.
“Partnership is important because if you roll out policies without leveraging on them it will not work well, but when private sector is engaged and you formulate policies together it works better.
“Private sector is the engine room in developing the economy in the world, so we need to carry them along.”