The Chairman of Charkin Maritime Academy (CMA), Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Sir Charles Wami has stated that the school remains the only maritime training institution that offers Dynamic Positioning of vessels as a course in the country.
He maintains that CMA which is situated at Ozuoba, along the ever busy East- West Road in the Rivers State capital, Port Harcourt 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.
In an exclusive chat with Maritime Bits, 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.
He called for the support and collaboration of all stakeholders particularly the Federal and State governments so that the academy will be in a vantage position to do more for Nigeria and its citizenry.
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 who made this call shortly after a visit to the Regional Maritime University (RMU), Nungua, Ghana recently, enjoined all stakeholders and investors operating in the maritime sector to contribute in raising training and certification standards of the university and other maritime academies in West and Central Africa.
The Secretary General who commended the university’s management for its increasing quality in the face of limited resources, described the institution as a critical arm of MOWCA in human capital development.
According to him, RMU and other maritime academies in the MOWCA region deserve support of terminal operators, shipping companies, international oil companies, and others including individuals to develop further.
He argued that such support would amount to multiple benefits to the trained seafarers, the governments, private companies and the economic growth of the regions.
Describing 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.
His words: “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”.
