The Shippers’ Association of Lagos State (SALS) has called on the National Assembly to immediately commence the process of amending the Coastal and Inland Shipping Act otherwise known as the Cabotage Act 2003 so as to meet with the realities of the present time.
The President of the association, Rev. Dr. Jonathan Nicol who made this call while delivering a paper at a Maritime Forum organized by the Law Students of the University of Lagos with the theme,” Ship Owning in Nigeria and Corporate Governance in Shipping”, held on Tuesday in Lagos, recalled that an essential part of the Cabotage law had not been operational for 11 years in the country as a result of some clauses contained therein.
Rev. Nicol pointed out that whereas the Cabotage law was targeted towards total industrialization of Nigeria within a short time, a lot of the concept went unfulfilled as the essence of industrialization could not be met due to consistent massive interference from government and settlements of political heavy weights in the system which according to him must stop.
According to him,” How many made in Nigeria vessels do we have in our coastal waters? Our steel industry is epileptic. The law says vessels must be built in Nigeria, the facility for ship building in Nigeria is non-existent and vessels must be built in Nigeria which means, vessels built in Nigeria will be under the governance of NIMASA and they in turn will provide the funds towards acquisition of vessels by Nigerians.
“Outside this, it is impossible for any individual or even NIMASA to disburse funds to anybody or corporate bodies. Therefore, the Cabotage law is in a restive state until Nigerian entrepreneurs come together and establish ship yards or assist NIMASA to achieve the objective of the Cabotage law, construct the vessels in Nigeria before funds can be made available. This falls short of Jones Act of 1938 in the United States of America. They have ship yards and they build ships. We do not have such facility as yet.
“In order to succeed, we call on the National Assembly to amend the Nigerian Cabotage Act of 2003 to meet with the realities of the present time. Navimor, a Polish Shipyard outfit was in Nigeria brought in by the Federal Ministry of Transport. How many vessels have they built? Or is it just a dock yard? All these ought to have been under NIMASA. We must all make it work. NIMASA has the facility to provide Corporate Governance in Shipping if we have vessels funded by the Cabotage law.
“In the absence of Nigerian vessels in operation, NIMASA cannot provide the Corporate Governance in Shipping for now. If the private investors can come together to form a mega firm, for instance, and own one or two vessels, Corporate Governance will be achieved because they will monitor the activities of their own vessels meticulously without government interferences”.
While recalling that Nigeria as a country had 22 ocean going vessels, he wondered what became of them thereby adducing three main reasons namely; lack of maintenance to meet with the international Maritime Organization’s standard, political interference which was like raw acid that melted the fabrics of professionalism for political favoritism which is still prevalent in all the Federal Government agencies as well as well trained NIMASA staff being relegated to the background for people who are totally ignorant to direct the affairs of an advanced outfit like NIMASA as responsible for the death of the said vessels.
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