Frontline master mariner and Chairman of Integrated Oil and Gas, Capt Emmanuel Iheanacho has charged the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) to ensure that the Cabotage Vessels Financing Fund (CVFF) is disbursed to only experienced indigenous ship owners who would use it judiciously to grown the shipping business.
Iheanacho in an exclusive interview with Shipping Position Daily on Tuesday in Lagos advised that new entrants into the ship acquisition and ownership business should be given limited amount of funds to acquire 5,000 tonnes tankers or general cargo vessels, pending when they would garner the needed experience in ship management.
He charged the NIMASA management to release criteria for disbursing the accrued fund to indigenous ship owners to boost the sector.
The former Minister of Interior, advised NIMASA to rank people in terms of their experiences in ship holding before they can disburse the funds.
“I don’t really know what particularly I wish to expect but I really wish that we can get ourselves together. We have accumulated quite a bit of funds for developing shipping indigenous capacity; we should be bold enough to define the criteria for letting those funds go, so that those who deserve and who have experience can have access to these funds to buy ships. I think that what should be done is that NIMASA has to device a means of ranking people in terms of experiences in ship holding”
Explaining further, he said that those who have successfully operated ships internationally should be empowered very well to be able to acquire bigger and better vessels while the new entrants should also be empowered adding that it will help the sector to grow.
“Those of us who have successfully operated ships will be ranked to be empowered and given the ability to borrow money to buy big and better ships. While the new entrants of course you give them limited amount of money to buy 5,000 ton takers or general cargo vessel and over the time of maybe 2-3years they will master ship management and once they master to the point you think they can operate well, you then lend them money to buy bigger and better vessels. So the thing will continue like that until you have Nigerians who own very big ships”
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