After about seven months after it assured Nigerians that it had sealed a ship acquisition deal with Greek ship owners, the Nigerian Indigenous Ship owners Association (NISA) yesterday gave reasons for non-arrival of the ships in Nigeria.
Coordinator, Lagos zone of NISA; Captain Franklin Akinpelumi in an exclusive chat with Shipping Position Daily, in Lagos disclosed that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) reached with their Greek counterpart is still intact.
Captain Akinpelumi told our correspondent that the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) had been instructed by the Federal Government to ensure that litherage operations are to be undertaken by local operators, which in turn led to the agreement with their Greek counterparts, but accused the NIMASA of not living up to expectations of indigenous operators.
Lighterage is the process of transferring cargo between vessels of different sizes, usually between a barge and a bulker or oil tanker.
Lightering is undertaken to reduce a vessel’s draft in order to enter port facilities which cannot accept very large ocean-going vessels. Lightering can also refer to the use of a lighter barge for any form of short-distance transport, such as to bring railroad cars across a river.
According to Akinpelumi, lack of lighterage business in Nigerian is a major setback for the Greek ships to come to Nigeria to commence operations, he lamented that efforts have been made consistently by NISA to ensure that lighterage business is reserved for its members.
He explained that, “lighterage business in Nigeria has not been successful and that is the cause of the delay why those ships from Greece are yet to sail into our waters”
“Otherwise the agreement is still intact, and the alliance with them is still intact as well”.
He noted that without any cargo to lift, owning ships is bad business, because according to him, lifting cargo is the hallmark of any shipping business.
The mariner added that, “we signed that agreement which is also the MoU with the hope of taking over our lighterage business and in fact there was a ministerial directive to NIMASA that henceforth all litherage operations must be undertaken by Nigerian vessels, manned, crewed and maintained by Nigerians”
He said it was on the strength of government directive to NIMASA that the association entered into the agreement with its Greek counterparts.
Discussion about this post