The chairman of Charkin Maritime Academy (CMA), Port Harcourt, Charles Wami, has called for the support and collaboration of all stakeholders, particularly, the federal and state governments to train manpower for the maritime sector.
Speaking against the backdrop of the secretary general, Maritime Organisation of West and Central Africa (MOWCA), Dr. Paul Adalikwu’s call for concerted efforts of governments, multi-national companies and individuals to support maritime training in the West and Central Africa sub-regions, he said the academy will be in a vantage position to do more for Nigeria and its citizenry.
According to him, the school remained the only maritime training institution that offered dynamic positioning of vessels as a course in the country.
He maintained that CMA has been offering the course over the years and will continue to do so base on its capacity and capability, especially in the availability of required personnel and modern state-of-the-art equipment.
Wami maintained that CMA has what it takes to provide the required manpower for the maritime sector of the economy as well as the oil and gas industry in the years ahead.
The CMA chairman’s statement is coming on the heels of the Secretary General, Maritime Organisation of West and Central Africa (MOWCA), Dr. Paul Adalikwu’s call for concerted efforts of governments, multi-national companies and individuals to support maritime training in the West and Central Africa sub-regions.
Adalikwu had described the huge resources spent to train African seafarers by some countries for globally accepted Certificates of Competency (CoC) as huge costs to the sponsoring countries.
He stated that such funds could be deployed to achieve more if most of the trainings are done within the MOWCA region to save cost and impact on more number of youths.
“At MOWCA, we are aware that some countries in our region have had to spend more foreign exchange from their meager resources to complete the maritime training of their citizens abroad. Many students in our region have also had to privately source funding to acquire certificates in oil, chemical and gas tanker officers’ course outside Africa.
“We are concerned and feel that if specialised courses like dynamic positioning of vessels are done within the MOWCA region, thereby cutting the cost of traveling, more youths would benefit from high quality maritime training at lesser costs.
“MOWCA is therefore appealing to foreign and local companies operating in our ports and entire maritime industry to support our maritime university and academies through donation of equipment, financial grants and making them their first choice for manpower sourcing.
“As a body comprising of 25 countries, we are deliberate in the drive for the development of qualified and competent seafarers to operate modern ships and contribute to global trade through maritime industry. I am optimistic things are going to get better for our training institutions even as I look forward to visiting the RMU again soon,” he said.
