Contrary to insinuations in some quarters that the plan to re-establish the national shipping line has become a mirage following the withdrawal of a major investor in the project, PIL Shipping; the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), Barr. Hassan Bello has assured that the project is still on course and will be delivered to Nigerians in due course.
Bello who made this known while fielding questions from journalists in Lagos recently said that although PIL had withdrawn from the project, there were many options still opened to Nigeria as it was not the only option assuring that the Committee on the Re-Establishment of the National Shipping Line was working assiduously despite the withdrawal.
He stated that for Nigeria to have a sustainable national shipping line, a lot of stakeholders including the banks, insurance companies, flag administration, nautical colleges needed to be involved even as he pointed out that policies and laws needed to be reviewed to meet the current realities.
In his words,” We have had many options; PIL was not the only options. There are many options, now establishing national fleet is not buying Akara or bread from the market, it has to be sustainable. That was why I said don’t build a fleet, we could do that, just gather a few people and there is ships everywhere christened them Nigerian name, have them have Nigerian flag and then we have a national fleet but we are not going to do that, we are going to go about it in a very economical way and in a very sustainable way and we are moving so much but it is not a talk shop. The committee is working day and night to see that we have national fleet.
“We have to involve our banks, we have to involve our insurance, we have to look at our flag administration, we have to look at nautical colleges, we have to look at the policies and laws to be changed- FOB to CIF and many other things including of course ship building and ship repair yards”.
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