Harboursandport.com: Lagos - Nigerian Divers have blamed the stagnation of
the sector on unregulated practices and increased foreign dominance fuelled by
the failure of the Ministry of Labour and Employment to establish a Diving
Advisory Board in line with the nation’s 2018 Diving at Work Regulations.
Mr. Julius Ugwala, the Chief Diving Inspector (Elect) stated this at the
weekend in an interview with Maritime TV.
According to Ugwala, in order to harness the potentials in the sector,
the nation would have to inaugurate an Advisory Board as stipulated by exiting
regulations to oversee the activities of diving including safety, education,
remuneration and local content development.
The diving expert lamented that despite Nigeria’s 853km long coastline
that runs through several states and the numerous maritime activities requiring
services of professional divers, the federal government is yet to see the
enormous potentials in the sector.
His words: “The government isn’t aware of the viability of the diving
sector and how much it could contribute in terms of revenue for government and
job opportunities for the teeming youth in the country. I think the
practitioners in the country should take up the onus of convincing the
government about the need to regulate the profession.
“Setting up the Advisory board would see the diving sector become a duly
regulated one in Nigeria. It would also lead to an influx of people into the
profession. People will be more willing to pick a career in diving and experts
would no longer have to travel out of the country to be trained. “
The Chief Diving Inspector, Elect disclosed that the diving sector has the capacity to put an end to youth restiveness across Nigeria by catering for over 10 per cent of the nation’s unemployment margin.
“The board would ensure proper regulation leading to the establishment
of quality schools in the country to train professionals. This nation is facing
a serious unemployment gap but this diving sector could reduce the margin of
unemployment drastically by more than 10 per cent”, he said.
He also decried the high mortality rate of divers in the nation, noting
that unsafe practices have become the norm following the absence of a
regulator.
Ugwala opined that the inauguration of an Advisory Board would bring
uniformity to diving practice and guarantee safe operations, insurance for
divers and appropriate remuneration to curb the paltry wages given to Nigerian
divers, unlike expatriates.
Speaking on safety procedures for diving, he said, “Nigeria isn’t
conducting diving safely. On a scale of 100 per cent, I would score Nigeria 30 per cent. The reason is that today we have multinationals in the country who
carry out diving operations without regulation. They have guidelines and mode
of operations, but when they find themselves in a difficult situation, they
tend to cut corners leading to loss of lives. Nigeria needs to have a system to
carry out an oversight on these multinationals.”
Ugwala also frowned at the dominance of foreigners in the nation’s
diving sector, arguing that the country was outsourcing the much-needed jobs to
expatriates despite having citizens who can carry out those duties.
Noting that divers are bound by regulation to take their original
certificates offshore, he lamented that piracy and armed robbery at sea have
adversely affected most professional divers.
“When offshore with valuable certificates divers get attacked by pirates
and they lose the documents. It means they have to go to school again or reach
out to the schools mostly abroad to get another certificate. Most times, it
can be very difficult to get these documents back and money is also spent to
retrieve them.”
“Today there are places divers are unwilling to go to work. The reason
is that they are afraid. The kidnapping hasn’t just been for expatriates. We
are also being targeted as professionals because we are working for the
International Oil Companies (IOCs).”
No comments:
Post a Comment