Oluyinka Onigbinde
There is uncertainty about the fate of several maritime assets that were seized by the Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON).
It has been difficult for AMCON to sell the assets years after they were seized and two years after the confiscated assets were put up for sale on its website.
The assets were seized and put up for sale following the failure of the owners to pay up the loans that they took from different commercial banks.
Stakeholders including ship owners who spoke with our correspondent raised the alarm over the state of the assets, which include vessels, tank farms including companies owned by some of the stakeholders in the industry.
Checks by Shipping Position Daily revealed that AMCON which is the Federal Government’s bad debts warehouse had put some maritime assets on its website for sale or lease since 2020.
However, two years after, the assets remain unsold and have started rotting away, while some of the vessels that were seized are on the verge of sinking.
For instance, about four tank farms located at the Ibafon petroleum products jetty in the Apapa area of Lagos have been put up for sale on the AMCON website since 2020. These tank farms were still put up for sale on the agency’s website as at the time of compiling this report
Our investigations revealed that the seized assets include: 76.9million litres of petroleum products and two tank farms at Ibafon, Apapa, with the total value put at N8.5billion as of 2020.
Apart from the tank farms, about six ships whose names Shipping Position Daily could not ascertain as of press time, are said to be on the verge of sinking at Kirikiri and some other parts of Lagos, Warri and Port Harcourt.
Stakeholders who expressed deep concern regarding the state of these assets lamented that AMCON lacks the technical know-how to handle maritime assets even as they lampooned AMCON regarding how they try to recover bad debt.
In a chat with our correspondent, a shipowner and member Nigeria Indigenous Shipowners Association (NISA); Prince Ayorinde Adedoyin stated that most of the maritime assets seized by AMCON are better off in the hands of the debtors than in hands of AMCON.
Adedoyin noted that there is a need to review the loan recovery structure of the company, adding that rather than seizing some of the assets AMCON should rather seek to take over the management of the assets, describing what is happening with the seized asset as “from bad debt to bad debt”.
“Maritime asset is something that sits on water, so over time there is bound to be a problem because it’s not moving, you have different hyacinth and seaweeds that affects the engine, you have a crew who over time when they realise they are not being paid may start to remove equipment from the vessels to sell, then before they can even say they want to sell the asset, the asset has actually been stripped”, he said.
He explained that, for someone who wants to come and buy, they would have to buy and sell the asset as scrap, so who do you blame, do you blame the man that they seized the asset from and he couldn’t use it to pay or you blame the man who seized the asset and not use it. So at the end of the day, it’s bad debt to bad debt.
On his part, a Master Mariner and President of Nigeria Association of Masters Mariners (NAMM) Capt Tajudeen Alao, also lampooned the asset management company over its handling of maritime assets. He said AMCON has no clue of what a ship looks like and such blame the company for making a mess of some of the maritime assets that were seized.
In his words “AMCON, lacks the technical know-how to run a ship, the same thing with EFCC and the banks.
“Shipping operation is a different ball game. They have all these assets on their table, they don’t know the condition survey of what they are taking over but when you tell the banks and AMCON, they will not listen. They should have an annex that deals with consultants on different types of assets such as estate, aviation, and technical people. professional bodies like the Nigerian association of master mariners and some other bodies and maritime lawyers can deal with the marine aspects.
“A ship that is sinking and AMCON has taken over it five years ago, the condition of the ship has no value anymore. Water has entered the engine room and everywhere. It can only be a wreck to be salvaged. Sometimes the cost of salvage may even be more than the scrap value.
Read Also: AfCFTA Challenges MAN on Harnessing Opportunities in the Continental Deal
“It is not too late, what they should do now is to have consultants in the different areas of assets taken over. Those technical people will be held responsible and not AMCON.
“In 2010, we had 10 to 13 ships aground in Tarkwa Bay, they all became scraps and they were sound ships before the weather put them on the sand. In salvaging it, it is going to cost a lot of money. But once they get an insurance company or private company who would pull those things out and they will be secured assets and they would have value. The cost of salvaging them can go under the general average; anyone who has interest can share and spread the loss among them.
“But they will leave it to become a total loss. It is quite unfortunate that those assets were better off in the hands of the judgment debtors than with AMCON. AMCON has no clue of what a ship looks like or what operation of a ship is like and they refuse to set up a technical wing to take care of that” he said.
All efforts to get the reaction of the Head of Corporate Communications at AMCON; Jude Nwauzor, proved abortive, as several phone calls, and text messages including Whatsapp messages sent to him which showed he read, were not responded to, despite his active presence online.
Kindly like us on Facebook
