Maritime stakeholders have decried the non-disbursement of the Cabotage Vessels Financing Fund (CVFF), resulting in an estimated annual loss of $1 trillion to the country.
This revelation was made during a maritime stakeholders’ meeting with the new Director General of the Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Dayo Mobereola, in Lagos on Thursday where stakeholders lamented the significant economic impact of the fund’s non-disbursement.
Dr. Emeka Akabogu, a maritime lawyer while speaking during his paper presentation titled “Marine and Blue Economy: Navigating to the Promised Land” revealed that the country is losing a whopping $1 trillion annually to non-payment of the CVFF. He added
that the country was losing $4bn to lack of local marine transportation.
“There are three legs to shipping, fleet expansion, ship repairs, and shipbuilding and the country is losing $9bn annually to the non-participation in international freight services,” he said.
Akabogu added that the fishing sub-sector of the maritime industry contributes N282bn annually to the economy.
“Nigeria’s coastal resources have an estimated capacity of $504tn. Current realized capacity is $106tn in export and import on frozen fish is $876m,” he stated.
Akabogu quotes the former DG of NIMASA, Dr. Bashir Jamoh, as saying that Nigeria loses approximately $25.5bn annually to illegal maritime activities and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited loses $1.35bn on oil bunkering.
Akabugo said that in 2024 alone, the number of registered ships in Nigeria was 4419 with a total tonnage of 5.8 billion.
“Summary of the valid registered vessel, 2136 with a 4.2bn gross tonnage, invalid registered ship, 61, cabotage registered vessel, 1033, with a gross tonnage of 1.9m. The foreign-owned vessel, 18 with a gross tonnage of 125m,” he added.
Earlier, the Flag Officer Commanding, Western Naval Command, Nigerian Navy; Rear Admiral Mustapha Hassan, said a lot is required from the NIMASA management in the implementation of the Cabotage Act, “which has not been effective since its enactment,”
He said there is a need for inter-agency collaboration in the cabotage regime to address issues of boarding and inspection of vessels, especially with the Automatic Identification System.
Hassan added that there is a lot of money to make in the implementation of the Cabotage Act. He said the Nigerian Navy is ready and will extend its support to NIMASA to treat these cases expeditiously in the next month.
A former DG of NIMASA, Temisan Omatseye, said the agency was established with the core mandate of promoting, protecting, and providing an enabling environment for indigenous ship owners to grow their vessels.
He, however, said unfortunately, the current NIMASA leadership would not be able to disburse the CVFF fund.
Omatseye noted that the financial regulations go against the banking and finance institutions’ regulations.
“By the CVFF, NIMASA is doing the risk assessment, but the disbursing does not allow an outsider to do the risk assessment as it negates the law that binds the funding,” Omatseye said.
According to him, the law says there is to be a CVFF and the fund is to be disbursed in line with the guidelines as issued by the Minister of Transportation and approved by the National Assembly.
The CVFF was established by the Coastal and Inland Shipping (Cabotage) Act 2003. The fund was established to develop indigenous ship acquisition capacity, and to provide financial assistance to indigenous domestic coastal shipping operators.
