The Managing Director, Wealthy Honey Investment Limited, Dr. Kayode Farinto has chided the Honourable Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi over his insistence on re-establishing the national carrier against expert advice.
Farinto who made his feelings known in an interview with our correspondent in Lagos stated the Minister’s attempt at re-establishing the national carrier was being driven by selfish interest rather than national interest.
He also expressed his disappointment with the Minister who he said had not done anything since assuming office but kept junketing from one country to the other in the name of wanting to revive the national shipping line.
He said,” First, the Honourable Minister of Transport is not capable. I remember when he called a stakeholders’ meeting, we told him there and then, don’t go and involve yourself in any national shipping line but because of the percentage that everybody wants to take, all their attention is to bring in national shipping line saying that Nigerian government will not be involved in financing the line. Let them show us the MoU that was signed, let them make it public, you will realise that we are going to lose billions of Naira and some people will pocket money and they will laugh at us.
“I am disappointed in this Honourable Minister of Transport because he has not even done anything, he is busy junketing from one country to the other in the name of wanting to revive the national shipping line. That is not the solution to our problem. Obasanjo told him, don’t do that now with the small money that we have, our economy cannot withstand that now. The little money we have, you want to take abroad, the Nigerian economy will crumble.
“Let the private investors come and invest here but you know this is a government that believes it knows it all and what is the pedigree of our Honourable Minister of Transport? You see, when people say that this government is promoting an act of nepotism, people don’t understand. You need somebody who is a maritime expert and you see our maritime getting it right because with the maritime sector, what is recession? With maritime alone, Nigeria can get out of recession under eight months but not when you are loading problems on the economy again”.
He continued,” We are saying we don’t want national shipping line, you are still putting us neck deep into it saying it is a private arrangement. What is private arrangement? Are you saying that government will not bring out money? If they are saying so, they should make it open. The problem with this country is that they make everything secret. Look at the so-called port concession agreement that they made, the same story”.
He posited that if the government is seriously with the maritime sector, it should create what is called the containment policy in the oil sector which would eventually get Nigeria out of recession under eight months adding that if it continues like this, with its “analogue, primordial system, we are likely to be in recession in the next four years”.
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