A Master Mariner, Captain Tajudeen Alao has called on the Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi to ensure a review and strict implementation of the two reports sent to him by the two committees he set up recently namely; Committee on re-establishment of the national carrier and the Committee on the repositioning of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN) Oron within the second quarter of 2017.
Alao who made the call in an interview with our correspondent in Lagos stated that the first quarter of 2017 was encouraging for the maritime sector in Nigeria adding that the second quarter would tell whether or not the government had the political will to implement the reports turned in by the committee members which many industry watchers believed will improve the fortunes of the industry if implemented.
According to him,” Both the committee report on MAN Oron and that of the re-establishment of the national carrier have submitted their reports and that means the stakeholders have been engaged. The Minister said that the President has given a go ahead, that he had given him all the powers to carry on with the areas but I don’t know how they will carry out the committees’ reports intoto without reviewing them. Whatever they recommended will not be implemented A-Z, they must look into them to draw a priority as to which one will they do first, which one will come with modifications looking at fund and practicability. We are not hearing things like that, the political will to implement the report is key.
When asked if the Minister will have the political will to implement the content of the report as it were, he had this to say, “As I said, it is better to make a mistake than not to start something at all. So, by June, we shall now see and the economy is going to improve anyway. So, with the improvement in the economy, there is a silver lining in the cloud. If there is no hope for the economy, then, you cannot implement anything but when there is hope from the economic side, then the political will will be there to carry on with the reforms”.
On whether anything has changed in the shipping sector between the end of last year and the first quarter of 2017, the Captain observed that nothing had changed since the jobs were not yet there even as he pointed out that investors who had gone away from the shore of the country had not been encouraged by the government to return to the country.
“The economy shrunked, the Dollar rate, the scarcity, so, people are not importing. If people are not importing products, what job will the vessels carry? If there is no exploration, all the offshore oil and gas as well as the International shipping, all those three have not been integrated in Nigeria. So, if there is boom, there will be activities, if there are activities, then, the people will be engaged. Ships that are normally laid up outside bar, I don’t think they are there anymore, they all went to Cotonou axis, the multiplier effects, the ship chandeliers, repairs, boat services going to ships laid up outside , they will be taking them away.
“Piracy has gone done, before, they used to be afraid of piracy, the government did not provide security for them so that even if they lay up their ships at anchor there, they are well protected from being attacked, there will be tendency for them to also carry out illegal activities in shipping. So, they are there innocently, more so if they are anchored above 12 miles away to the international waters, it is for the government to provide security in that axis and then the people providing services to them, chandeliers, boat services and things like that, the technical people will have jobs to do.
“But if the ships are not there, they are in Cotonou triangle, they are in Lome, they are not in Nigeria, the owners will incur expenses to go and see them there. Meanwhile, all the workshops in Nigeria will be idle, there will be no work for them to do. These things are all interwoven, when one leg is bad, it affects the equilibrium of the other leg”, he said.
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