Why African Seafarers Attract Patronage, By Expert

A NORWAY based maritime training consultant, who has been coordinating trainings of Nigerians in that country as seafarers, Captain Arne Loland, has enumerated the factors that are inhibiting African countries from becoming an alternative source for maritime manpower supply in the world, saying corruption in the their educational system has been the bane.

Loland is also collaborating with the Maritime Events Limited and the Regional Maritime University in Accra, Ghana to organise the second African manning and training conference in Ghana next month.

According to the master mariner and consultant, the moment African countries begin to act consciously against corruption in their educational system to correct the negative impression that Africans are going about with fake certificate, the continent will become an alternative source of maritime labour in the world.

Speaking with The Guardian on the forth coming conference in Ghana, Loland said there are negative impressions about African countries in foreign countries, adding that the negative impressions have hitherto made it impossible to recognise the maritime workers even those who acquired their certificate genuinely.

"African countries lack qualifying educational institution and this coupled with the impression about Africa by other countries. There are pirates in Somalia, there is militancy in Nigeria, and you can not see negative things about other countries. There is this impression about low educational standard, there is no international shipping company in Africa, the existing ones are into coastal operations"

Fielding questions on the need to employ the available and qualified seafarers in Africa by foreign ship owners, Loland said those who have genuine qualification would need to defend their certificate and to tell the world that they have been trained to international standard

"If you are qualified and can prove it, you will get a job. There should be no fear about employment. One way to prove it is showing papers and the other is to express ability. All these should be accepted internationally", he said

The Norwegian maritime consultant, who took a clean swipe at the African maritime sector, lamented that the continent has a viable coast line only very few of the citizens are in the international maritime labour market

He said the continent of Africa has a long way to go in the attempts to meet up with advanced maritime nations, adding that within the continent seafarers are still being looked upon as inexperience and with low level of education

"When I talk to ship owners here they said Nigerians lack experience, they said the country lacks educated seamen. Many Nigerians go to Ghana for training because the Nigerian certificates are not recognised by other countries. Africa has a long coast line but only few Africans are in the international seafarers market. Why are there few Africans on board ships? What can we do to change this? How can we create jobs? We can improve Africa as an area where you can take seamen from".

Continuing, he said: What I am seeing personally is a long, long way to go for Africa," adding that countries in the continent would need to begin to organise properly, put in place a system to avoid fraud and corruption which are in all countries but more in magnitude in Africa, they will need to come up with proper documentation. They will need to eradicate a situation "when if you go to school and you can say I have so much money, can you give a certificate," Africa doesn't have a specialised maritime institution, I mean the institution that can go into the specifics in maritime"

Commenting on the Ghana conference, he said it was on training and manning, adding that those things that would make Africa an alternative source of manning and crewing would be looked into with the view of finding out the problem area for correction so that the country could become a viable place to source maritime labour in the world.

"The conference in Ghana is about maritime training and manning, to make Africa a new continent for seafarers and maritime crewing source

The foreign master mariner, who said he has been involved in the training of the youths from the Niger Delta, as seafarer lamented the continue domination of the seafaring business in Africa by the Indians and the Philippines

"Today most crew comes from Asia and former east block countries. Only very few from Africa. What we will like to achieve with conference is to make Africa a new continent for the supply of crew vessels, we want to find out the requirement to become a sailor, what are the shipping companies are looking for? Why Africans are not being taken as sailors by ship owners? Is there anything wrong with educational system or is there anything wrong with the impression about Africa? When we asked these questions, then we have to find answers as to the reasons why Africana are not involved. The Philippines are dominating. The other countries are India, China"

The second maritime manning and training conference in Ghana is expected to be chaired by former Executive Director of O. T African Lines, Mr. Asoma Banda. According to the organisers, the event billed to begin on March 10, is targeted at ship owners from the continent.

This is the first private initiative aimed at generating interest in the maritime issues especially maritime labour matters. The first of the conference took place in Abuja about four years ago and was attended then by the Secretary General of the International Organisation. It was organised by the Federal Ministry of Transportation and the defunct National Maritime Authority, now National Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (source: www.ngrguardiannews.com).