Ship Owners Association of Nigeria (SOAN) yesterday raised an alarm that Nigeria is losing multi-billion Naira to foreign insurance cover providers, called ‘Protection and Indemnity’ insurance in London, due to failure of Nigeria insurance companies to live up to expectation.
Speaking yesterday during a press conference organized by the association, the Vice Chairman of the association Mr. Eno Williams stated that the issue of insurance for ship owners has always been a headache for ship owners in Nigeria.
He alleged that, “the Nigerian insurance industry has not live up to expectation while rendering service, For instance, this ship you are seeing the prototype here got burnt, but as we speak, this month would makes it five years this ship (Niger Delta king) has been down, in which is not so in London, they will simply just issue a credit note and the job would have been done within 6 to 8 month, but here it is going to 5 years now, and we are losing multi billion naira to the P&I insurance company in London
Speaking earlier the President of the association; Dr. MkGeorge Onyung disclosed that the association will be organizing an international shipping expo with the theme “Ocean Blue Economy and National Development”, as he maintained that Nigeria is lacking behind in the comity of nations, when it comes to ship ownership and maritime businesses.
“In the maritime space, you will understand we have come a long way, but Nigeria is lagging behind in the community and comity of nations when it comes to ship ownership and maritime businesses, to be able to let the word know that shipping is 90% of global trade. The theme of this conference is the Ocean blue economy and national development.
“We believe that we are blessed with a vast ocean and we also know that in the world today, the future is the blue economy because the world is created with two Ocean and Land and man has not conquered land not to talk of ocean. That is why we the ship owners ventured into this business of utilizing the resources of the Ocean to create a global economy that we will be able to tap wealth from the Ocean.
“We, ship owners are not trying to carve a niche for ourselves, but we are trying to contribute our quota to national economy by creating employment opportunities and to that respect, we have decided to organise this conference to open the doors to a lot of investment”.
He said two things will make this conference attractive, first is Cabotage which has been on for over 15 years, adding that the conference is going to open doors for collaboration to people who want to collaborate in terms of asset.
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