The House of Representatives recently suspended the planned disbursement of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF), to Nigeria shipping companies by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA).
The news which shocked many maritime industry stakeholders reportedly came after the lawmakers adopted a motion of’ urgent public importance’ that was brought before the House by Hon Henry Nwawuba,
Not done, the House also directed NIMASA to present an audited statement of account showing all monies that have so far accrued to the CVFF.
The House also order a committee to commence immediate investigations into the Fund to determine the value of all monies that have accrued since its establishment in 2003.
We recall that, to address lack of capacity among indigenous ship owners in Nigeria, the CVFF was included in the Coastal and Inland Shipping Act of 2003; otherwise referred to as Cabotage Act. The essence is to provide funds for vessel acquisition among the indigenous operators.
The source of the fund is a two per cent contribution by indigenous ship owners from every contract executed in the nation’s waters.
The collection and disbursement of the CVFF is backed by the provisions of Section 42(1)-(2) of the Cabotage Act 2003, which aims to promote the development of indigenous ship acquisition capacity by providing financial assistance to Nigerian operators in domestic coastal shipping.
Sadly, since the commencement of implementation of the Cabotage Act, indigenous ship owners have looked forward to the day the CVFF would be disbursed.
With foreign shipping companies flouting the nation’s Cabotage regime at will, the disbursement of the CVFF to indigenous operators was expected to increase indigenous capacity to a level that allows for competition with their foreign counterparts. But, this has not been.
There have been several reasons and failed promises from both the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Ministry of Transportation.
We recall that, in June last year, a ship owner and member of the Nigeria Indigenous Ship owners Association (NISA); Mr Ayorinde Adedoyin raised an alarm that the CVFF is beginning to look like a scam.
About the same time, the President of the Shipowners Association of Nigeria (SOAN); Dr. Mkgeorge Onyung raised a similar fear.
After the immediate past Transportation Minister; Mr Rotimi Amaechi resigned, the SOAN President appraised the apparent hopelessness about the failed promises of disbursement of the CVFF. He expressed total disappointment.
The move by the lawmakers is apparently one of the many landmines that have been set in the way to make the CVFF unavailable.
We recall that, at a point, the immediate past Minister of Transportation; Rotimi Amaechi claimed that the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, had said that the CVFF does not belong to indigenous ship owners, and that it was a government fund meant to be used for public project. The Minister then directed the indigenous ship owners to write a protest letter to that effect!
Also cautiously toeing the line of the Minister of Finance, the Director-General of NIMASA, Dr Bashir Jamoh, during a briefing with maritime journalists wondered why somebody would claim ownership of a fund and still want to borrow from such a fund!
But a ray of hope later came when the incumbent Minister; Muazu Jaji Sambo was appointed. While bemoaning non-disbursement of the fund, he had assured stakeholders that he would do everything possible to ensure that the funds were disbursed before the end of 2022. The Minister confirmed that the President approved the disbursement following convictions that the money actually belongs to shipowners.
His words: “I want to say it here that it (CVFF) is indeed a low hanging fruits and I will do everything within my power to make sure that the fund is disbursed to Nigerians as quickly as possible, so that Nigerians ship owners can increase their capacity and as well generate wealth here instead of patronising foreign ships owners and money from such business is taken out of Nigeria, rendering us jobless”.
Alas, we are already less than two weeks to the end of his tenure and that promise is yet unfulfilled.
The issues around the CVFF appear like a conspiracy against ship owners and indigenous tonnage ownership. There appears to be a conspiracy of not wanting to disburse the CVFF, or is there something unusual or untold about the fund that handicaps them?
How else can one explain the fact that, each time there is hope about its disbursement, something will happen to truncate the efforts.
At some point, there was an announcement that six companies had been prequalified to benefit from the fund; that changed
After the assurances of immediate disbursement, what we are hearing now is that the Federal Government will set up a committee to oversee the disbursement.
Another curious development is the demand by the NIMASA DG that indigenous ship owners, particularly the associations; NISA and Ship Owners Association of Nigeria (SOAN) must unite and possibly collapse into one indigenous ship owners association to facilitate disbursement of the CVFF.
He confirmed that a committee will be set up, as well as series of meetings between the agency and the PLIs and ship owners at different times.
He gave the impression that, contrary to the Minister’s directive of immediacy in the CVFF disbursement, there is actually no urgency.
We hear that NIMASA had earlier shortlisted six companies as first beneficiaries of the fund after due diligence had been conducted on them, and handed over their names Ministry of Transportation,
We had been told that it is the Presidency that is delaying the disbursement, which appear untenable any longer, going by the December 2022 declaration by the Minister.
The fact is that, the CVFF remains an unfulfilled dream of the initiators and drafters of the Cabotage Act.
We had thought that the conspiracy was only between NIMASA, and the Ministry of Transportation, but now the National Assembly has been brought in.
Our sympathy goes to Nigerian ship owners, who have waited endlessly for the funds to be disbursed, even after contributing to it, for years.
We are of the opinion that what the House of Reps has done is unfortunate and amounts to unwarranted meddlesomeness. This is because, the Cabotage Act does not mandate the Executive to take orders for the disbursement of the CVFF from the lawmakers.
The President has approved, based on the submission of both the Minster of Transportation and the D G of NIMASA.
The lawmakers do not have the backing of the law to suspend the CVFF. So their action may require stakeholders asking questions about the vested interest of legislators in the CVFF. The action of the lawmakers is tantamount to disturbing the executives.
It is apparent that the questions being asked by the House of Representatives can not be fully answered or satisfactorily answered before May 29, when this administration (Executive and Legislature) will cease to be. It then means that the process of disbursing the CVFF has been successfully truncated and will be left with the incoming administration and of course, the legislature will rekindle its interests too.
From the history of CVFF and the antics surrounding its disbursement, the larger fear is that, government may actually have no intention in disbursing the Fund.
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