Ship owners under the auspices of Ship Owners Association of Nigerian (SOAN) have said that the association will not accept any idea by the government to float a national carrier and then, concession it to the private sector.
The opposition comes few days after the Rector of a merchant navy institute; Stars Maritime Academy, Dr. Reuben Ovai, advised the government to establish and concession the proposed national carrier.
In a telephone interview with Shipping Position Daily last week, the President of SOAN, Engineer Greg Ogbeifun, said that the call to concession the national carrier to the private sector doesn't make sense.
He urged the government to create an enabling environment to encourage the establishment of a national carrier instead of concessioning it to private sector.
"Concessioning what we already have in existence being run by the government to a private sector is wrong. So the call for concessioning of the national carrier to the private sector doesn't make sense to me. I will not encourage the government to fund the establishment of any national carrier. Instead, the government should create an enabling environment for the emergence of Nigerian fleet", he argued.
Engineer Ogbeifun, called for the review of import policies to enable the establishment of a Nigerian fleet.
He also advised that reviewing some of those policies will make the national carrier very competitive, when established.
"In doing that, the government has to review the import policy to enable Nigerian fleet to be established. There should also be a waiver for import duty for Nigerian ships. There are few policy issues that need to be reviewed that will make the establishment of Nigerian ships possible and internationally competitive", he added.
He said that until those policies are reviewed, the national carrier will not be competitive, even as he added that the major challenge in the establishment of a national carrier lies on the laws to encourage it.
"If the government has not done that and they went to use government money to establish a national fleet, that fleet will not be competitive commercially when it comes to international trade. So there are lots of works that need to be done before such a move will be backed upon.
Establishing a national career is not the challenge; the challenge is the laws that will enable the establishment of any Nigerian fleet.
He also called for the need to make the national carrier sustainable when established.
"There are series of other incentive that must be put in place. All of these are the things that will make it possible for the fleet to survive, you must make it sustainable. Which of them have had the experience of running an international fleet, none. So you find out that the question now is who are you going to concession to. Who is there that has the competence to handle that when established. So at the end of the day you find out that they will concession it to foreign companies. So it is something we need to look at very well", he argued.
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