LAGOS (Sundiata Post) – The Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dakuku Peterside, has restated the agency’s commitment towards ensuring that welfare of dockworkers gets priority attention.
Director General, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) Dr. Dakuku Peterside (left) presenting a plaque to the President-General, Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN), Comrade Anthony Nted Emmanuel when members of the Union paid a courtesy visit to the DG at the Head Office of the Agency in Lagos.
He made this commitment when the leadership of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) led by the president-general, Comrade Anthony Nted Emmanuel paid courtesy visit to the agency’s Headquarters in Lagos, recently.
The NIMASA boss said that maritime workers were very important to the development of the maritime sector and by extension the Nigerian economy and that their welfare issues must always be at the front burner.
He commended the leadership of MWUN for the role it played in the past in maintaining industrial peace in the sector, stating that the impact of a crisis-ridden maritime sector on the Nigerian economy can better be imagined.
The DG stated that maritime workers were the agency’s strategic partners and that NIMASA would ensure the training of dockworkers as well as create an enabling environment for them to work.
“We consider maritime workers our strategic partners whose input, support and dedication we cherish. Our role therefore is to ensure that they work under the right conditions that are in line with the ILO and IMO instruments”, Peterside said.
The DG also said that the process of Dockworkers registration and issuance of biometric identity cards was on-going.
According to him, “We have already initiated the process of the issuance of biometric identity cards for dockworkers as part of our automation process in line with our digital transformation strategy”.
In his response, the president-general of MWUN, Nted Emmanuel, commended NIMASA’s management for its new drive of ensuring a stakeholders’ driven maritime sector. He advised the management of the Agency to pay more attention to training of dockworkers and their welfare.
Comrade Emmanuel also observed that there was a need to revisit the pooling system of dockworkers which was very effective in the monitoring of activities of the maritime workers in the ports and on board vessels by relevant agencies.
It would be recalled that NIMASA recently mediated in the dispute between the dockworkers and the operators of the ENL Terminal in order to continue to ensure that the workers’ interests are protected and ensure that industrial harmony is maintained in the maritime industry.
