The immediate past minister of transport, Alhaji Ibrahim Isa Bio will certainly be remembered as a minister who totally turned a deaf ear to perhaps an issue which would have earned him eulogies and accolades. He had the opportunity of ensuring that the National Assembly reviewed the Cabotage Act which was passed by the National Assembly in April 2003 and which was assented to by the then-President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo shortly after.
Nigeria, by embracing the Cabotage Act became one of about 50 nations which are already practicing the protectionist cum nationalistic intervention in aid of indigenous players in their domestic maritime affairs. Top among such nations are: the United States of America (whose Jones Act was copied by Nigeria), Canada, Brazil and Malaysia, among others.
The essence of the Nigerian Cabotage Act is to take advantage of the fact that the nation’s oil and gas sector constitutes more than 90 per cent of commercial coastal and inland shipping. The law was enacted to ensure that Nigerian players participate more appreciably in the affreightment of petroleum products within the nation’s coastline and inland waterways.
In essence, if its provisions had been well implemented, the Cabotage Act would have engendered job creation, increase in indigenous fleet, a boost in maritime infrastructure development (including ship building and repair capabilities), enhancement of national security, and a leap in national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and ultimately boost government revenues.
After so much appeal from stakeholders and in obvious deviance of the provisions of the law, the process of the much-required review was to be initiated in the second quarter of 2008.
By April 2, 2010, it was exactly two years since the then-minister of transportation (water); Prince Okechukwu Emeka inaugurated an 18-member committee to review the Cabotage Act of 2003. The committee which drew its membership from stakeholders was headed by former chairman of the Senate committee on marine transport between 2003 and 2007, Senator Ugochukwu Uba.
The committee was given a wide scope to cover, including: identification of all the vessels operating in the Coastal and Inland Water Trade by ownership and the date of involvement in the trade, examining the modalities for grant of waivers and evaluating all waivers granted so far and raising justification for each waiver as well as usefulness or otherwise of continued retention of the provisions for waiver under the Cabotage regime, evaluating the institutional machinery for overall implementation of the various provisions of the Act and recommend as appropriate and evaluating the gains of the Cabotage regime to the Nigerian economy since inception and highlight any draw back in the implementation process.
It is on record that the committee undertook facility tour of at least five critical, Cabotage-sensitive organisations including dry docking and ship repair yards and also visited United States of America and Malaysia. This is in addition to hosting a stakeholders’ interactive session in Lagos.
There is no doubt that the committee did a very thorough job and even went ahead to suggest ways of reversing the obvious trend of failures that has been the lot of the law since its enactment, presidential assent and implementation.
The fantastic report was submitted to Okechukwu Emeka shortly before he was removed from office, but, sadly, the well thought – out report has been abandoned to gather dust in one of the several offices in the ministry of transport.
If I were the minister of transport, I will make the review of Cabotage my number one agenda.
Good enough, the highly-respected committee categorised the recommendations into two: namely those that require simple administrative action and the ones that require legal action.
Good enough again, out of the 19 recommendations, only six requires legislative action by the National Assembly, while the remaining 13 require administrative (albeit, ministerial) action.
If I were the minister, I will immediately call for the recommendations of the Senator Uba’s committee.
Good enough, the minister does not require more than giving the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) the matching orders to commence immediate implementation of those recommendations that can be handled administratively.
Even, the recommendations that border on the intervention of the National Assembly also require substantial start-up inputs from the minister and if I were the minister, I would hit the ground running; knowing fully well that I have a ‘very short time’ to make an impact. He needs not be reminded that the panacea for the near-comatose Nigerian shipping sector is a well understood and implemented and consequently vibrant Cabotage Act.
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