Rev. Dr. Alex Favour Okwuashi is the Rector, Certified Institute of Shipping, Nigeria. In this interview with our correspondent, he bared his mind on the Marine Notice issued by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) recently, he shipping sector in the last six months, the Nigeria Maritime University and many more. Excerpts;
Recently, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) said that it would not recognize any certificate issued by any Maritime Training Institutes it did not accredit and it listed the names of the institutions it accredited and the name of your institute, the Certified Institute of Shipping was found missing on the list. How do you explain that?
Thank you very much for this opportunity to explain a few things concerning CIS. First of all, the information making round for me, there is really no need for that.
First of all, NIMASA has an obligation as a Maritime administration to do what they call domain awareness or to create domain awareness. So, the Maritime domain awareness also includes enlightening the public about the duties , the responsibilities, the functions of maritime administration. It also helps to put institutions within the maritime sector on the know of certain information that will guide their operations and activities within the period.
So, looking at that publication that NIMASA made a few days back, it is what I refer to as public notice. Do you know that some people go to all kinds of institutions and obtain some certificates or some kind of training from quack institutions that are not accredited or approved by certain legitimate authorities and so they parade these certificates and it is very rampant in the maritime sector where you see people carrying STCW ’95 mandatory certificates from institutions that are not accredited or rather that are not approved. Let me not use the word accreditation because I will explain something about accreditation.
So, NIMASA is a maritime administration, their duty includes, you can look at NIMASA Act 2007 and that shows you clearly, part of the functions of NIMASA. That Publication, to put things in the right perspective, is a public notice telling people that in case they are not aware, they should not go out there to train in the institutions that are not approved.
Now, talking about maritime institutions, if you look at it, there are very many institutions that you can refer to as maritime institutions, even including Universities that are teaching and certificating people on maritime related matters. FUTO is there, Cross River University is there, UNILAG is there, YABATECH is there, LAUTECH is there, then if you come to professional institutions, CIS is there, Starz Maritime Academy is there, Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron is there, EMDEE Shipping is there and so on and so forth.
If you want to know the institutions that are offering related courses to maritime, you probably need to look at NUC and NBTE. In this country, issues of accreditation of courses is the responsibility of the Federal Ministry of Education. Then, there are parastatals of the Federal Ministry of Education, just like NIMASA is a parastatal of the Federal Ministry of Transport that has been charged with the responsibility of accreditation, at the University level, you have the NUC, at the Polytechnic level, you have the NBTE, at the College of Education level, you have the National Commission for Colleges of Education and so on and so forth. These are accrediting institutions with regards to Certificates offered by institutions.
So, NIMASA’s publication should not be a subject of controversy or debate, they are talking about Maritime Certificate of Competencies for seafarers, for dockworkers and so on and so forth. Competency certificates according to STCW ’95. So, here we are probably talking of training of seafarers specialty because seafarers, we are talking of safety, we are talking of training of seafarers for the purposes of safety. The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency has ca cardinal role to play there. They may not regulate the PHDs in shipping administration, MSc. In shipping management and so on and so forth because those ones are not seafarers, those ones are the administrators.
So, this publication you see is limited. This morning, I was trying to look at the publication, and the publication is very clear, just that some people sometimes start up controversy where it is not really necessary. Just look at it, “approved maritime training institutions”. Now, they said “Marine Notice”, so it is a notice. “Notice to ship owners, operators, shipping companies, ship Managers, manning Agents, masters”, they are giving them notices because, what prompted this notice is according to the memo, that they had just conducted a reappraisal of training centres that are authorized to train people according to the Standards of Training, Certification and Watch-keeping, they didn’t say diploma, standards of training, competency certificates.
But let me put it clear for the benefit of many that do not understand this before they started calling and trying to heat up the polity. NIMASA is not an accrediting Institution, NIMASA is a regulator. They regulate the entry of companies, they regulate the shipping industry, the maritime industry for the purpose of safety and security.
If you look at the law setting up NIMASA, very clear, just that persons that are trying to create unnecessary tension and make it look like somebody is doing what he was not supposed to do. Look at the functions and powers of NIMASA in part 4 of NIMASA Act, you will see clearly there that NIMASA has for example let me just mention them, one, “ regulate and administer the training and certification of seafarers”, not Degree holders in shipping, not MSc. Holders in shipping, transport or maritime or logistics or supply chain, they have no powers over that. If you are talking of seafarers because of the purpose of safety. “NIMASA can establish training and safety standards”, those are the things they are trying to do. Another thing that they do, “they provide direction on qualification, certification and welfare of maritime labour”, all these dockworkers, stevedore companies and so on and so forth.
Another thing they do there is,” they administer policies for the development of shipping generally”, another thing they do is,” they can establish and manage maritime institutions for the training of Officers of the agency”, in other words, NIMASA may set up inspection college may be specially to train shipping inspectors just like you had in the time past where NPA had NPA Technical College where they trained their own people to do their different technical jobs.
NIMASA can also provide consultancy and management services relating to any of these matters that we have discussed. It can also enter into a Memorandum of understanding to train people. That is what all these institutions or centres that were approved by NIMASA which they are talking about Standards of Training, they are in short, into a kind of Memorandum of Understanding with NIMASA because NIMASA before now, don’t train anybody. It is a way of outsourcing the standardization of these trainings to the institutions that can provide the facilities.
So, that is what these people are doing, NIMASA need to visit them, there is what you call resource visit to see whether an institution have adequate training facility to train these people for the safety. And what are we talking about here? The trainings last for one week. No University trains anybody for one week. They are just short course training programme, just two weeks, maximum one month, three days, safety training after your basic education, if you want to become a seafarer, if you want to work on board a ship, you want to work in a Marine facility, you want to work in a platform, you can go and take any of these trainings, may be a ship security officer position, if you want to work as a company security officer or port facility security officer, you go and do ISPS training. Those are the people that NIMASA regulates to see that people who want to do these jobs are competent to do them. NIMASA does not accredit.
CIS for example does not need the permission of NIMASA to exist as a Polytechnic, we don’t need NIMASA’s permission to exist as a training institution. In fact, don’t forget that the Certified Institute of Shipping has already been gazetted by the national assembly, he bill has been passed by the National assembly and the bill is in the Senate to regulate the entry of persons not entry of institutions into the shipping profession which NIMASA staff are members and are to become members just like what ICAN is to the Accounting profession, just like what the Institute of Bankers is to the Banking profession. So, NIMASA is not the one training ship managers or to train the core professionals. So, their scope is limited to the regulation of shipping practice not award of certificates.
Since that publication which had been chronicled by some maritime based Newspapers, I am sure that it may be causing some panic among your numerous stakeholders who are not aware of what you just explained now. What effort are you making either on your own or to get NIMASA to put the records straight towards reassuring your stakeholders on your status in this regards?
That is why we keep talking about domain awareness. In this Maritime sector, we lack what we called maritime domain awareness but by way of cautioning, I will say, you know sometimes, NIMASA makes these notices, they use wrong terminologies. But we don’t blame them too, though lawyers may write it, though their publicity department may write it but they make lots of mistakes because they supposed to specify and say with the exception of the universities and Polytechnics so that the people will not be confused.
But like I said before, it is the perception of those who are reading it because communication is a two way thing, so, people get information but they misinterpret it, but the intention of the sender is a different thing. NIMASA has a genuine intention, like I have already read before, they are trying to warn the public against going for quacks to do their training, that is what they are trying to do. I don’t think it is a direct indictment on institutions that are not doing these short courses.
But, this is the clarification I am making, CIS is recognized by the Federal Ministry of Education, it is recognized by the NBTE, it is also recognized by JAMB, we are in the JAMB syllables, we don’t operate a training centre, we are a full institution.
