Last week, the Coastal and Inland Shipping Bill (otherwise called Cabotage) marked 10 years as an Act of parliament. It was signed into law on April 30, 2003 by then- President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Its implementation actually commenced in May of the following year (2004); prior to which a committee was conceived to dot the ‘i’ and cross the‘t’ and ensure that the hopes that were expressed were not dashed.
Last week, the Coastal and Inland Shipping Bill (otherwise called Cabotage) marked 10 years as an Act of parliament. It was signed into law on April 30, 2003 by then- President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Its implementation actually commenced in May of the following year (2004); prior to which a committee was conceived to dot the ‘i’ and cross the‘t’ and ensure that the hopes that were expressed were not dashed.
Expectedly, the secretariat for the implementation was domiciled in the then-National Maritime Authourity (NMA), which at that time was headed by Mr Ferdinand Agu.
As conceived, the Cabotage Act was to protect local players; including ship owners, seafarers, ship yards and investors from the obvious imbalance between them and their foreign counterparts.
Prior to the enactment of the Act, the lamentation was that indigenous players could not match the foreigners, so everyone thought that the passage into law would automatically transform the locals from being peripheral players to the top of the ladder. How wrong everyone was.
With the benefit of hindsight, the Cabotage Act actually died on arrival, by the fact of the roles of both its implementers and its supposed beneficiaries. The list include: successive ministers of transport, starting from Dr Abiye Sekibo to the incumbent; Senator Idris Umar, successive Directors General of NIMASA (perhaps the only exemption is Mr Ferdinand Agu, who knew what to do, but was not allowed enough time to put Cabotage on a solid footing before he was edged out of office). Last on the list, but not by any means less culpable are indigenous ship owners under the aegis of ISAN.
To have an effectively implemented Cabotage, the headship of the implementing agency (NMA, or NIMASA) must be topnotch, must not have truncated tenures and must be allowed some degree of independence as the Act allows.
The fact is: all those who have headed NIMASA since 2003 have had truncated tenures spending an average of one year each. How can any CEO do anything reasonable within such a short time? Apart from Mrs Mfom Usoro and to a small extent, Mr Temisan Omatseye, others are largely either not well-kitted for the job or are were appointed to the office for political expediency. Some may argue that Cabotage is just one aspect of NIMASA’s large portfolio, but I say it is the essence of its being.
For Cabotage to succeed, the ministers of transport ought to show sufficient discipline in the exercise of their superintending role; especially as it concerns granting of waiver. The abuse of waiver clause has been the bane of the implementation of Cabotage Act. To the extent that successive ministers have not been able to effectively manage the administration of the all-important waiver clause, they are all culpable in the failure of Cabotage.
Even when ministers of transport were expected to save the situation by embarking on some degree of administrative interventions, they refused. A former minister of transport, Chief Okechukwu Emeka constituted an expert and stakeholders’ committee to undertake the assignment of pointing the way forward. The committee which was chaired by a former chairman of Senate committee on marine transport, Senator Ugochukwu Uba did a marvelous job; sadly its report has been abandoned in the ministry of transport since then.
For those who care to ask, why did subsequent ministers of transport chose to ignore the report which spells out what should be done to make Cabotage work in Nigeria.
The committee suggested some recommendations that “require legislative action for their realization, while others require administrative action for their implementation”. But their findings were jettisoned. Why!
Meant to be the major benefactor of Cabotage, indigenous operators; including members of the Indigenous Ship owners Association (ISAN) have embraced every Directors General of NIMASA so blindly that the association has never opposed any appointment, even when such violates the Act which established NIMASA.
For the Act to succeed, players like ISAN ought to have been more nationalistic, altruistic and sincere in their dealings with the supervisory agency and the ministry.
The four pillars are that: Cabotage vessels must be wholly -owned by Nigerians; they must be registered in Nigeria, must be crewed by Nigeria and Nigerian shipyards must build and repair Cabotage vessels.
How many ships have been added to Nigerian register since 2003, how many Nigerian seafarers are engaged on Nigerian flag vessels and how many ship yards does Nigeria have that can effectively handle repairs?
The most glaring indices of failure of the Cabotage Act is the depleted bottoms that Nigeria now has, the mass of unemployed seafarers, the prevalence of foreign interests in our coastal shipping, especially as it concerns rendering of services in the oil and gas sector and in line with the Local Content Act.
It is on record that it was the then-Nigerian Shipping Companies Association, backed solidly by the then- NMA that fought the Cabotage fight and not ISAN.
If the almighty United States of America could make a bold statement of indigenising her coastal shipping business through the Jones Act of 1938, why wouldn’t Nigeria with a coastline of about 870 kilometers and almost 3,000 kilometers and about 22 ½ billion cubic metres of crude oil deposits, 3 ½ trillion cubic metres of hydro carbon and 42.7 billion cubic metres of bitumen deposits embrace or make a success of its Cabotage Act?
The answer is simple: It is the stakeholders that killed it.
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