Marine Environment: Nigeria, MTCC sign MoU for GHG emission reduction in maritime sector

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), representing Nigeria, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding ( MoU) with the Maritime Transport Coordination Centre (MTCC) for capacity to address the need for reduction of Green House Gas emission in the maritime industry.

Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Bashir Jamoh, disclosed this on Friday at a media parley at the agency’s headquarters office in Lagos, where he gave reviews of the Agency’s performance for 2021.

The initiative undoubtedly, supports the drive from Africa in addressing climate change issues, and according to Jamoh, “ the MoU will lead to the commencement of activities towards ensuring GHG emission reduction in the maritime sector with emphasise on achieving  0.5% sulphur oxide X02 in bunker fuel.”

As an international regulation by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the focus is to create awareness, establish bunker fuel supply register, and get an accreditation of laboratory for testing bunker oil.

On that note, the NIMASA DG said: “Our laboratory is already completed, and before the middle of this year, we will enter into a PPP agreement with professionals who can man the laboratory, and we will commence the utilisation of the laboratory.

“Our capacity building on emission reduction and establishment of compliance monitoring enforcement team, are the steps we are taking on the marine environment management.”

Speaking on the agency’s effort at ensuring appropriate claims are received in cases of environmental pollution, like what has been happening in the Niger Delta Region, Jamoh said that a manual with all necessary information in that regard has been contracted for production.

His words: “Similarly, we have produced a manual for the admissibility of claims under the International Oil Pollution Compensation (IOPC) Funds. The Manual is to contain the price index for determining the culture of claims for settlements in the case of pollution.

“We have been experiencing pollution; recently, we have been battling with the pollution in the Niger Delta. Many a times when we experience that, we have to lodge our claims through the International Maritime Organisation.

“And we can’t do that if we don’t have price index; what we are saying is that we have introduced such price index. We awarded that contract to a contractor to produce that, so that Nigeria can benefit from the funds of the IOPC marine environment pollution.”

Meanwhile,  Jamoh also said that NIMASA has also had discussions with the Minister of Agriculture for proper involvement of the Department of Fisheries in efforts to tackling the problem of Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing.

In the nation’s quest for well-rounded security architecture of the nation’s waterways, Jamoh said “Nigeria Customs Service also joined us in discussing the issue of proliferation of small arms and importation of illegal arms.”

Speaking on NIMASA’s performances in the areas of flag administration and port state control, Jamoh disclosed that in spite of the pandemic, which slowed businesses around the world, the Agency was able to survey a total of 489 vessels in 2021, a 43.6 per cent increase when compared with the 276 vessels surveyed in 2020.

In its port state control implementation to ensure compliance with safety standards and pollution control while vessels are on the nation’s waters, the Agency’s review also showed better performance in 2021 over what it achieved in 2020.

NIMASA boarded a total of 675 foreign vessels in 2021, as against 510 boarded in 2020.