Maritime Academy to commercialise facilities
The Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron in Akwa Ibom, has concluded plans to commercialise its facilities to boost its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). The Rector of the Academy, Commodore Duja Effedua (rtd), disclosed this during an interaction with newsmen in his office on Wednesday in Oron. Effedua said that it was necessary for the academy to look inward on its sources of revenue to maintain the standard in the institution. He said that before now the institution depended solely on government and fees generated from the cadets.
The rector, however, said that the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic had affected the academy as International businesses had slowed down. In terms of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), they can't predict that anymore because COVID-19 had scattered everything, most of the ships are not there. Now, sources of revenue are very few.
He added that only few people are coming, they come for mandatory courses and the academy train them on that. That's the major source of revenue, but COVID-19 has affected them. At the present they have a lot of equipment which they never had before like full-vision simulator, engine simulator, multifunctional class room and we have the helicopter that water escape through, among others.
Effedua said that they intend to commercialise most of the equipment which they used in training cadets, it will be opened for those who don't have the money to buy the equipment. He repeated that others can come and train in the academy with some payment, but at a subsidised rate also, because government should not be making money from capacity building, rather they should encourage capacity building. He emphasied that the academy will be opened and he has told and some have started coming.
The rector said that there were areas the academy has comparative advantage over other maritime institutions and he urged others to come to the academy for exchange. According to him, the academy has agreed that where they have advantage over another maritime institutions they will give them 50 per cent rate and vice versa. So, those are the only ways they can generate more money; before they depended solely on attendance but now they hope to commercialise the equipment, and the hostels facilities is available.
He continued that there are some special hostels that are not used by cadets; it's called guest houses or halls of resident; other maritime institutions can spend some token and spent a night, do their training and go back. Effedua said that he would consolidate on what the academy has achieved in the last four years, build on the structures and equipment to avoid going down. He said that the academy would ensure capacity building, recruit best lecturers within the country for the cadets. He planned to expand and go beyond what they do. The academy not only training cadet, they train people from oil industries and those serving their own ships, who comes for professional courses.
