… plans to give carriage of government generated cargo to Nigerian owned vessels
Determined to involve more indigenous ship owners in the nation’s shipping business, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) Tuesday said it had put plans in place to actively engage more Nigerian owned vessels in the nation’s shipping business.
Speaking in Lagos in an event to mark one year in office, Dakuku Peterside, director-general of NIMASA, said there were discussions in the Presidency to allow only Nigerian owned and registered vessels to be major carriers of government generated cargo.
“Plans are in top gear to use our existing enabling laws to make public cargo available for indigenous shipping operators in order to improve commercial fortunes and competitive advantage over their well capitalised foreign counterparts,” Peterside said.
While stating that such model is not going to be peculiar to Nigeria, the NIMASA boss said in other developed countries like the US that recently drafted a bi-partisan bill, which seeks to allow US flagged vessels to carry up to 30 percent of the US Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), with the aim of strengthening indigenous participation in US shipping business.
This, according to Peterside, is already at the executive management level and NIMASA is determined to take it to highest bureaucratic, legislative and executive engagement to ensure the plans succeed.
Peterside, who observed that the current Free on Board (FoB) crude oil trade policy had been posing serious threat on the chances of Nigerian ship owners to getting crude oil lifting jobs, also disclosed that the agency was joining forces with well-meaning Nigerians to move for the change of the trade policy from FoB to Cost, Insurance and Freight (CIF), to increase the chances of Nigerians benefiting from crude oil lifting jobs.
“This will not only give distribution control of our hydrocarbon resources to Nigeria but will also enable us empower our people through cargo lifting and meaningful participation in the entire value chain of our export goods. Achieving this will help more Nigerians to participate in cargo lifting, cargo insurance, and create jobs for Nigerian cadets as well as other ancillary sectors,” he said.
He however added that NIMASA would soon do an executive memorandum to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for consideration and approval.
On the disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Funds (CVFF), which was developed to enable indigenous ship owners have access to cheap funds that would help them acquire new vessels to compete with their foreign counterparts, he promised that the agency under his care would see to the disbursement of the Fund, which had currently accrued in excess of $100 million.
While disclosing that the agency does not have the power to disburse the Fund, Peterside said NIMASA as enabled by the law was to create an environment for the fund to be disbursed by the Federal Ministry of Transport supervised by Rotimi Amaechi as the minister.
On issue of allowing indigenous ship owners to benefit from public cargo, Emmanuel Ilorin, a ship owner, said since the demise of Nigerian National Shipping Line, Nigerians had not benefited in the carriage of government generated cargoes due to lack of enforcement of enabling laws and funds to acquire standard vessels.
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