Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, has threatened that the Federal government will scrap the Nigerian Maritime and Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) if the parastatal does not sit up and fulfill their obligations. Amaechi said this while appearing before the senate committee on Maritime yesterday January 19th. He alleged that the parastatal outsourced their responsibility to former Niger Delta militant leader Government Ekpemupolo aka Tompolo.
Amaechi said this administration is contemplating on scrapping the Nigerian Maritime University started by the last administration
“I don’t think we are proceeding with the university being proposed by NIMASA because it is a waste of resources, and unfortunately a lot of money had already been released for the university project hence there is no structure on ground but just the feasibility study. The Chinese company contracted, confirmed that only the feasibility study was in place. We are not going ahead with the university project proposed by NIMASA because we have an institution in Oron, we have Nigeria Institute of Transport Technology, Zaria, and we have the Nigerian College of Aviation in Zaria which we could upgrade to a University status and NIMASA is proposing to build a new one. Currently, the way NIMASA is, it looks as if it was established just for the purpose of collecting money and nothing more. If NIMASA failed to perform its core responsibility, then it has no business existing. If it is just to collect money from individuals, anybody can do that. We can hire a tax collector to collect money from maritime operators on behalf of federal ministry of transport. It is either NIMASA sit up and carry out its own responsibility or we come to the national assembly to repeal the act setting it up.”he said