Former Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Mr. Temisan Omatseye has said that Nigeria loses $300 million annually as war risk premium payable to foreign insurance companies describing it as the biggest scam ever in Nigeria.
Omatseye who made this known while delivering a keynote address at the 3rd edition of the maritime students’ conference tagged, “A Day with Nigerian Maritime Students”, organized by Platform Communications Concept in Lagos on Monday also said that for everyday a vessel stayed 5 degrees east, it paid $1,000 to the insuring company abroad.
According to him,” A container will leave China, America or whatever, they all end up in major trans-shipment port, it is from there they share cargo to the different regions and whatever, that is where cargoes coming to Nigeria are loaded. Some shipping lines will now bring a bigger vessel and take that cargoes and discharge them at Lome because we have draft specification issues in most of our ports, Lagos we have some 12.5, Warri/Escravos, we have 5.9, Port-Harcourt is even bigger, we can get bigger vessels there but Calabar, we have 6.4 metres draft.
“So, the issue we no get is that when they now get to Lome, they now trans-ship that cargoes again to Lagos, when it gets to Lagos, it is now redistributed but the ship owners will now tell you, we are not going anywhere near east, they call it 5 degrees east, anybody that goes 5 degrees east will now have what is called war risk premium when we are not at war in Nigeria. For everyday a vessel stays in 5 degrees east, it pays $1,000 to the insuring company; it is one of the biggest scam in Nigeria. They collect up to $300,000 million a year on war risk and they so claim but we are not at war, but till tomorrow, they are still claiming that.
“But unfortunately, because it is an invisible trade, government does not feel it, so government does not take the impact to actually fight the scam and stop it. So, they are not seeing it, so, they cannot stop it. So, you can imagine the amount of risk the supply boat, everything that is operating over there, insurance is no longer here because they say over there is covered by war risk. This is money we are losing but guess what? That money is added to your pockets, this is fact because you don’t see it, so it is additional money for you.
“When the cargo now lands in Lagos, they now have to move it by road, that is where Apapa problem now started because everybody comes and discharge at Apapa, nobody wants to go to Warri, Port-Harcourt or Calabar which you cannot blame them but over time because they are saying look, I don’t want to be attacked by any pirate or I don’t want my insurance premium to go up, please come and collect your cargo in Lagos”.
He however pointed out that efforts were on to convince the shipping lines to take the cargoes 5 degrees east or on the alternative drop the cargoes at the Lagos quayside while indigenous operators provide the ships to execute the redistribution themselves and bring back the empty containers to Lagos.
“What that will now allow us to do, we might not be doing international trade but we will be doing indigenous and local trade because they have made it very clear they are not interested in cabotage trade. They are only doing it because they don’t have a choice, they must bring the cargo in and they must take empties for export out of the country”, he said.
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