Director-General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) Dr Dakuku Peterside has said that the agency is targeting N109 billion as revenue in 2018. He said this while defending the agency 2018 budget before the Senate Committee on Marine Transport in Abuja. According to him, the agency is optimistic it will generate N109 billion as revenue in 2018. Peterside said that the total estimate was achievable based on the number of initiatives the agency had put in place to block revenue leakages.
“N109 billion is an estimate; we are workings toward accomplishing that, this revenue include revenue from Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF), that I have no access to. It also includes our mandatory contributions to Maritime Academy of Nigeria, which is not in our disposal but we optimistic that with the numbers of initiatives we have put in place. We have blocked leakages, we have done everything humanly possible to reduce our expenses to make it achievable,” he said. He, however, told the committee that every adjustment and amendment had been made on the budget as directed. NIMASA boss said that a total of N18.7 billion was remitted in 2017, which was the 80 per cent of the total revenue for 2017.
He said that N2 billion was also contributed to Nigeria Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) for the dredging of the lower Niger River, which was approved by the presidency. Peterside said that in 2018, the agency hopes to complete the reforms it had started by making the waterways safer than it used to be by investing in the security of waterways. He said that the agency intended to build offices in the eastern zone, central zone and also concentrate on capacity building, by training seafarers and scaling up its operations in 2018.
