Peterside upbeat as Navy flags equipment against maritime crimes

As the Nigerian Navy’s Falcon Eye come on stream on Monday, the Director-General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dakuku Peterside, is excited at the equipment’s potential to substantially help in the nation’s quest to monitor its maritime domain against piracy and related crimes.

The equipment, otherwise known as Over the Horizon Maritime Surveillance from Detection to Interception, according to the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok Ete-Ibas, is a capacity enhancer that reduces the cost of patrols and allows for greater accuracy in maritime surveillance.

Ete-Ibas noted: “When you have troops patrolling without focus, we can sit back at the Naval Headquarters in Abuja and identify some vessels of interest and investigate them. This way, our operations become easier, more efficient and very effective.”

The maritime domain awareness tool would further integrate and enhance the regional maritime surveillance system, as it enables the personnel to see beyond the horizon.

Welcoming the equipment as a positive development, the NIMASA chief, Peterside, said the navy has just provided “an ample opportunity to synergise and tackle piracy and other criminal activities within our waterways.

“It will make the navy more aware of the activities going on in the maritime domain. The equipment will help in the area of detection of criminal activities, interception of criminals and record keeping.

“I am quite impressed with what I saw; I am also in touch with my Nigerian Ports Authority counterparts, and we agree that the equipment is strategic to our plans.”

Having already aligned with the navy in the fight against maritime criminalities, Peterside had earlier assured shipping companies operating in Nigeria of the agency’s commitment to ending waterways criminalities, hinting that the Federal Government would soon launch a high capacity satellite system that will assist the military in dealing with maritime crimes.

He urged the shipping companies, which included Grimaldi, Maersk, GAC, Hull Blyth, Mediterranean Shipping, PIL and Comet Shipping, to support NIMASA’s capacity building scheme by providing cadets sponsored under the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP) with sea time experience. This they promised to do.

And in response to their worries on payment procedures, Peterside disclosed that the agency was reviewing the present practice and would soon automate its revenue collection processes to eliminate revenue leakages and increase efficiency.

He further assured them that the agency would put in place more transparent ways of calculating the three per cent levy charged on all in-bound and out-bound cargo, saying: “We are automating our payment platform in line with our strategic growth plan to ensure greater efficiency in the payment process.

“The new process will be integrated with similar platforms of sister agencies in order to correctly ascertain levies chargeable per freight and eliminate the bottlenecks currently being experienced.”