Amaechi berates Peterside for incompetence, says heads may role

Barely three months after he was celebrated for Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency’s (NIMASA) improved revenue remittances, the Director-General, Dr Dakuku Peterside, now walks tight rope over alleged lapses that have robbed the agency of huge earnings and also scuttled shipping growth. On their part, the ship owners demanded Peterside’s outright sack for his incompetence in running the agency. Addressing a workshop and dinner organised by the Ship Owners Association of Nigeria (SOAN) in Lagos Thursday, the Minister of Transportation, Mr Chibuike Amaechi, lampooned Peterside for not implementing the report of the ministerial committee set up to reposition the agency even after he had approved it. Amaechi said that after being indicted by the committee he set up in collaboration with the stakeholders, Peterside initially failed to implement the report on the excuse that he was yet to get the minister’s directive, which he (Amaechi) then gave in writing. However, he was piqued that the report was not yet being implemented, even as he expressed dissatisfaction with the industry because it is supposed to be generating more revenue than it presently does. He said: “I am not looking for financial audit but performance audit and heads may roll when the audit report comes.” Meanwhile, he explained that Nigeria’s failure last weekend to win Category C seat at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) was because they were “like new persons to IMO” when they started lobbying, the nation having stopped being in the executive by 2011.