President of the Nigerian Shipowners Association, Capt. Dada Niyi Olabinjo recently held a briefing with members of the maritime press at the association's Secretariat in Apapa Lagos. Labinjo talked about the delays in the disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) and the fact that that so many waivers have been granted to foreign vessels by NIMASA to the disadvantage of indigenous ship owners. Shipping Position Daily's Dapo Olawuni was in attendance.
President of the Nigerian Shipowners Association, Capt. Dada Niyi Olabinjo recently held a briefing with members of the maritime press at the association's Secretariat in Apapa Lagos. Labinjo talked about the delays in the disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) and the fact that that so many waivers have been granted to foreign vessels by NIMASA to the disadvantage of indigenous ship owners. Shipping Position Daily's Dapo Olawuni was in attendance.
Sir, can you shed more light on the agreement you are planning with the American shipowners?
These are commercial transactions, I cannot give more than I have given now, you are only being in a hurry, it is a baby that will be born and you will see the baby, the transaction is ongoing. As I speak to you, I have received several offers from the Americans which we are processing, give me one million ships, don't give me jobs, I will refuse them and so will all these my members, we need to get this sorted out. Things are very slow now in the country, you want to rush and bring in vessels? The one I brought in sometimes ago is still there, so we have to be very careful.
It is not because there are no jobs, but the current situation does not warrant me to collect one million vessels from you because I will be doing nothing with it. There are jobs; on PMS alone, Nigeria is doing N1.8billion in a month and at 3Naira per litre, N5.4billion is realized as disposable income, again if you go to Lome offshore axis, what international marketers bringing fuel to Nigeria do is that when they get there, they will stop and then foreign vessels will come and start bring in the product to Nigeria, it is a whole lot of scam that is against international trade, it is against maritime security and IMO conventions, all cargoes destined for Nigeria should come to Nigeria, we have our own ship-to-ship transfer zone where vessels can lighter the cargoes. So government should allow us to carry these multitudes of products with our vessels.
Why were you absent at the 2015 NIMAREX expo?
There was no reason, it's because I was not around, if I was around I would have been there, I have told you that NIMAREX is my baby, I singularly wrote it and submitted it to the executives and it was agreed upon, but this year I was not around, it is an annual event and we will make sure it achieved its objectives; the objectives will be when everybody including the media begin to get a boot at the next NIMAREX, when I was doing my tutorial visit, I went round to study how these things are organised, I saw many publications at Posidonia, I deliberately went to inquire what they were doing and I counted many of them who took boots, they were also stakeholders. So if anybody was not there, it was only a reflection in the country, it is not because of any other reason.
It seems NIMAREX 2015 is a wasteful exercise…
It appears so at this moment, don't forget that this is just the fifth edition, Posidonia is over a 100 years old, World Boat Show is also over 100 years old, Sea Asia is over several decades, so I believe with NIMAREX, one day we will get there.
The crisis is NISA, how are you handling it?
I have always said it that there is no crisis in NISA, there is no faction, what we have is a disagreement between family members, we have some in-house disagreement and I am not afraid to say it, my "sin" is that my small private transaction conducted by my company amounts to an action that is inimical to the objectives and aims of the association, what is the objectives and aims of the association? Ship ownership promotion, and to conduct maritime advocacy, how does that small transaction become inimical? It is not, if there is a dispute, it is normal in every commercial transaction, once there is a dispute, the solution is to go back to your mechanism which is always in the agreement, it is either you go to court or you go to arbitration or we sit down and discuss it.
You talked about a notice served by Nigerian Content Board on foreign shipowners
Before his exit, Engineer Ernest Nwakpa served notice last year to all IOCs engaging offshore vessels that on expiration they will not renew their contract, that instead they should get Nigerians and unless the Nigerian government puts his feet down, the IOCs will want to continue taking advantage of you, maritime is a place where might is right. In the deep oceans, the big fishes will eat the small fishes, this is why I have said that our nursery needs to be protected, you must protect your shipping, if not, others will come and ravage it and leave you in the cold. There is a committee which we belong to, the committee advises NCDMB and we have shipping and logistics representatives there, we are aware and keeping our eyes on the ball, we will kick them out and take their place.
There are insinuations that the CVFF account has been depleted and the money has been spent
The NIMASA Act says that 2% of all contract should be paid into NIMASA as Cabotage vessel finance fund, in essence, any vessel operating on Nigerian cabotage area must make the contribution, similar to this is the ship acquisition and building fund to help shipowners acquire vessel. However, several billions of Naira said to have been collected, not even a canoe has been bought, no member has benefitted. In the last three years, all we have been hearing was that the primary lenders have shortlisted six people to benefit, but nothing has been said again, and now the news is that the Cabotage vessel fund has completely been depleted, documents available showed that nearly 40billion has been spent out of the CVFF, it is even possible that the whole money has been wiped out. Section 42 to 45 is the one talking about Cabotage vessel financing fund, there is no provision there for building a maritime university or shipyard, also don’t forget that the CVFF is our 'esusu', so why would NIMASA use it for other purposes other than buying us vessels.
Do you agree that there is corruption in the waiver administration by NIMASA?
No where in the world will you apply for a waiver and simply use the receipt to work except in Nigeria, the receipt is not a waiver. In waiver administration, there is an application and then a license, you first of all apply and then you pay, this is when you will be given a receipt. That vessels now come in and out of our waters with a simple receipt and NIMASA has the guts to say they are working with receipt, they are the same people that are supposed to arrest these vessels, but they watch helplessly because of corruption. When you have a law passed by your legislature and you as an agency saddled with the implementation simply ignores it, that means there is problem.
NIMASA is saying that they only issued five waivers, if this is true, why are there so many foreign vessels outside bar? You can get as many as 800 vessels carrying out operations, I don't think any vessel without waiver will venture to violate the laws of a country, because the Act states it clearly that the penalty is forfeiture and jail term. So, the ministry of transport is saying that they only issued five waivers, but NIMASA is supposed to enforce it and yet people are trading with a mere receipt that was given to them and NIMASA is not checking and stopping them from working. The bottom line is that members of NISA are being denied the jobs intended for them.
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