Restructuring exercise sends panic among NIMASA staff

A palpable fear of possible job loss has now gripped the staff of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) over the impeding restructuring exercise at the agency.

The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Ameachi, has never hidden his disgust at what he described as the high scale of fraud and looting being perpetrated at the apex maritime regulatory agency.

At different fora, since he assumed office, he has unequivocally declared his intention to audit the accounts of the agency alongside that of the Nigerian Ports Authority(NPA), another government agency he described as a cesspool of corruption.

Amaechi also said that the present bogus structure of NIMASA encourages corruption and other financial sleaze at the agency, wondering if there was any other job description for the regulatory agency outside award of contracts.

To make good his threat, the minister appointed a high powered committee headed by Peterside Dakuku, the newly appointed Director-General of NIMASA to look into the structure of the agency with a view to making it amenable to changes that will enhance its operational efficiency.

The committee, which has since submitted its report to the minister, met 18 times during which its members drawn from public and private sector in the industry, looked at the structure of the agency which they discovered was not in tandem with the modern realities of maritime administration.

”We(the committee) met 18 times and had comparative analyses to meet up with world best practices from Singapore, Malaysia, Malta, Liberia and in several other maritime administration. We had discussions with those who work in NIMASA, we also had series of engagement with stakeholders.

“After this diligent work, we came to the conclusion that in your humble determination to bring about change in NIMASA, a few necessary changes must be made, those changes are inevitable”, Dakuku told Ameachi while submitting the report to the minister.

Sources close to the committee told Business Hallmark that some departments were recommended to be scrapped while others could be merged to have a slimmer and more efficient workforce.

Among other recommendations of the committee included pruning down the workforce of the agency which they described as bogus and redundant as a result of the duplicating roles of some departments.

This has therefore sent a cold shivers down the spines of the staff of the money-spinning agency who are afraid of being sent to the bourgeoning unemployment market.

Business Hallmark also learnt that the minister directed the committee to look into the recruitment exercise carried out by the last administration of the former NIMASA DG, Patrick Akpobolokemi, which has generated controversy and bad blood among staff.

It would be recalled that some aggrieved staff of the agency in 2015 petitioned the Ministry over what they described as lop-sided and ethnic – motivated recruitment exercise carried out by the administration of Akpobolokemi in which scores of personnel from a particular region were recruited without due process.

The petitioners also alleged that those newly recruited then were imposed on the old staff as superiors, a practice they claimed was against the civil service norms.

But the last administration in the ministry did not act on the petition until Ameachi assumed office and directed that the grievances of the aggrieved workers should be investigated by the committee in the context of the restructuring exercise.

It was gathered that the committee may have recommended that those concerned whose appointments were not subjected to due process may be axed, especially who do not possess the requisite qualifications for their present positions held at the agency.

Conversely, those who possess the requisite qualifications but hold positions not commensurate with their years in service will be accordingly downgraded to commensurate positions.

In addition to tinkering with the structure of NIMASA, Ameachi has also engaged a firm of auditors to look into the books of the agency with a view to determining how the resources of the super-rich agency are being deployed.

The minister expressed his concerns over the high level of pillage of agency’s resources by Akpobolokemi administration.

It could be recalled that Akpobolokemi, alongside nine other directors in NIMASA as well as some of the erstwhile DG aids are currently facing criminal trials at two separate Lagos High courts over alleged theft of about 38billion belonging to NIMASA.

The nine NIMASA directors fingered in the scam have since been placed on suspension with half salary until investigations into the matter are concluded.

The mindless looting perpetrated at NIMASA by Akpobolokemi and his cohorts has exposed the agency to ridicule and public odium so much so that former president Olusegun Obasanjo, at a public function in Lagos recently, referred to the agency as” a place where people freely steal money”

The development has also ensured that the National assembly now put a tight screw on the finances of the agency, which, as one of the staff put it, has caused untold hardship to the agency.

”They have drastically cut our budget. They (National Assembly) now scrutinizes every kobo we spend. They said we wasted resources and stole because we have surplus.

The incumbent DG of the agency, Dakuku Peterside, at a recent media parley, shocked the whole world that NIMASA was broke and that he now could barely pay staff salary.

It was this anomalous situation which was generally acknowledged to have facilitated seamless looting of the agency’s resources that has necessitated the drastic changes that are about to happen in NIMASA and for which its frightened staff have developed goose pimples.

Akpobolokemi employees and those likely to be affected in the impending staff rationisation exercise