The Nigerian Indigenous Shipowners’ Association (NISA) has identified lack of funding and infrastructure deficit as major challenges facing the development of shipping sector in Nigeria.
The association which spoke through its President, Mr. Aminu Umar at an event in Lagos recently said that while funding had always been a challenge, infrastructure on ground were not good and of world standard thereby posing a lot of safety issues to ship owners.
Umar said,” I personally have experience where we have so many damages because the infrastructure is bad and it is creating more losses and damages to us”.
He went on to categorize the infrastructure needed by the indigenous ship owners into three, “one is for ship that comes into Nigeria and it is at the sea not coming in and we have infrastructure from when the ship is about coming into the ports of Nigeria, that is transiting through the channels, then we have infrastructure when the ship is alongside at the terminals”.
He continued,” So, you can see that the government controls the one outside and the one transiting through the channels to the terminals. The terminals have been concessioned to private owners but the main issue for the ship owner is not gears to discharge cargo at the terminals, it is the infrastructure in the transiting which is the channels are not well dredged, there is no tug boat there to assist the vessel and because the channels are not well dredged, the vessels encounter accident on their way coming inside and you cannot see under water, you use the chart to see the depth of the water, which areas to move and these things are lacking there.
“In the event there is need for a vessel in an emergency situation offshore Nigeria or anywhere, there is none, nothing is put in place to be able to help you or to get through it, unfortunately we don’t have it and we have experienced that a lot recently.
“We believe maintaining the channels and making sure the channels are safe are part of the duties and responsibilities of the Nigerian Ports Authority and ship owners pay for these things, we pay for every ship that come in, we pay for channels management, we pay for harbours, we pay for towage and we pay for pilotage. If they don’t put in place those thing that we have already paid for, it means they are not delivering on their service and we believe they should look into that. The MD of the Nigerian Ports Authority who is very energetic, we expect her to please look into this and make sure that those channels and services that we pay for are there and are being delivered”.
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