The Senate has threatened to issue a bench warrant on the Director-General of Nigeria Maritime and Safety Agency(NIMASA), Peterside Dakuku.
Chairman Senate Joint Committee on Navy, Marine Transport and Finance, Thompson Sekibo issued the threat to arrest Dakuku on Wednesday after he failed to appear before his panel currently investigating the activities of Ocean Marine Solutions Limited (OMSL) on the Secured Anchorage Area of the Lagos ports.
The Senate Panel refused to entertain a representative Engineer Aruna Arugungun from NIMASA; arguing that it required the presence of the DG whose testimonies it believed will assist greatly in its investigation.
The panel, however, granted Dakuku a grace of appearing before it unfailingly the next day (Thursday) or else faced the warrant.
It’s the second day of hearing with the Senate Panel taking testimonies from many other critical stakeholders including the Ministry of Transportation.
The Minister of State for Transportation, Gbemisola Saraki who stood in the absence of the Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, confirmed that Israeli Vessels are heading to Nigeria as part of the Deep Blue Project.
Under this arrangement, an Israeli Security firm, HSLI will provide equipment and training to the Navy to effectively man the Nigerian waterways.
The Minister, however, said that the Deep Blue Project, the first tranche of which cost Nigeria a whopping $192million was different from the SAA in contention between NPA, the Navy and OMSL.
She said the ministry will meet with all parties on Monday before it can reach a definite decision on the matter including what becomes the fate of OMSL in the entire equation.
Virtually all the stakeholders who appeared before the Senate Panel strongly supported the existing SAA arrangement.
These included Shippers Owners Association who said they were comfortable with the services of OMSL.
The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders aligned strongly with the position.
The Police Marine in its report said the SAA was completely out of NPA jurisdiction and that its new leadership appeared to have “misunderstood”, the operations of OMSL.
