The Federal Government has called for solutions to issues that will help to ensure fair treatment as well as better living and working conditions for seafarers, post COVID-19 pandemic.
The Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, said this at the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) 2021 Day of the Seafarer in Lagos on Friday.
The Deputy Director, Maritime and Safety, Federal Ministry of Transportation, Mr Austin Makama, represented Amaechi at the event, with the theme, “Fair Future for Seafarers”.
The minister said that seafarers were exposed to many challenges during the pandemic.
He said they made personal sacrifices at the peak of the pandemic, especially with the lockdown and movement restrictions in most countries across the globe.
The minister said: “Most seafarers could not see their families for months as a result of the inability of shipping companies to affect crew changes due to the lockdown and restrictions.
“Most seafarers that were sick lacked easy access to medicare yet UN declared them essential workers and urged nations of the world to treat them as such.
“Yet the seafarers were the ones making sure those medical supplies and other essentials got to their destinations.
“So there is need to proffer these solutions for them.”
Amaechi said that Nigeria as a member-state of International Maritime Organisation was one of the first countries to declare seafarers as essential workers in order to ease their sufferings.
He reiterated government’s commitment toward ensuring that the maritime domain is safe and secure for seafarers working on ships transiting through the Nigerian waterways.
