NIMASA: NOT many commentators would give a pass mark to our public institutions in terms of creating value and delivering on their mandate...
NIMASA: NOT many commentators would give a pass mark to our public institutions in terms of creating value and delivering on their mandates.
But a recent report of some transparency measures at one of our institutions, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, noted in the past for big-scale sleaze, caught our attention to step back and look for some glitters of hope.
Apparently, a new regime of transparency has been instituted in the management of the Agency under the current leadership.
We are aware that the leadership met five years backlog of unaudited accounts, an enabling situation for graft in Nigeria’s public offices. But our investigations show that the records have now been tidied up, as the accounts have been audited by external auditors, contrary to the norm across almost all government agencies.
Beyond the Agency itself, financial transactions with other organisations which formed the basis for its revenue have also been straightened with a transparent Final Billing System, FBS.
The FBS has not only eliminated corruption anchored on haphazard revenue accrual records but has also reduced the volume of irreconcilable accounts with shipping companies to the minimum.
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Consequently, the Agency has raised its contribution to the consolidated revenue account of the Federal Government by almost 560 per cent from N3 billion to N20 billion within three years.
The system clean-up is also extended to the standard of services to the stakeholders. For instance, the time for issuance of sailing clearance to ships has been reduced from seven days to 24 hours, a massive improvement in the turn-around time for vessels which has reduced costs in the industry.
The new leadership has sensitised the staff and management to the battered reputation and public standing of NIMASA of a few years ago, thus forcing the charting of a new course.
Some new things have started happening in the wake of this change. The Agency had embarked on digital strategy reforms and now about 70 per cent of its processes are fully automated, cutting out avenues for corruption while speeding-up service delivery.
A few more values have been created for stakeholders in the maritime ecosystem by these changes. The Agency placed 7,000 seafarers on board Cabotage vessels in one year (the highest in our history); issued or renewed a total of 3,500 Certificates of Competence, CoC, in one year, the highest ever; and introduced the annual maritime industry forecasts giving investors in the maritime sector in Nigeria a head start.
We note the remaining sore thumb: the high piracy rate in Nigerian waters that has challenged successive leaderships of NIMASA. However, we hope the situation will improve in 2020, as the International Maritime Organisation, IMO’s, recent report confirmed a decline in incidences.
Moreover, NIMASA appears set for a new dawn with its Deep Blue project being created to tackle criminality and piracy on Nigeria’s waterways.
The post NIMASA: The change and the odds appeared first on Vanguard News.
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