Apparently dissatisfied with the constant omission of the shipping sector in critical government planning, the Nigerian Chamber of Shipping on Wednesday converged stakeholders in the shipping industry in Lagos to discuss the way forward for the industry in the coming years.
Gathered under Focus Group Meeting, the stakeholders led by a panel of discussants moderated by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and former President, Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Olisa Agbakoba brainstormed on the theme, “Nigeria Shipping Policy: A Catalyst for Maritime Economic Growth”.
The panel was comprised of Dr. Chris Asoluka, Managing Consultant FM & T Consulting, Mr. Taofik Adegbite, CEO Marine Platforms Limited and Mrs. Mfon Usoro, Secretary General of Abuja MOU and former Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA).
Firing the first salvo, Dr. Chris Asoluka recalled that the colonial administration of Nigeria promoted British shipping interest even as he advocated for Nigeria to begin to make the cabotage work for the promotion of indigenous shipping in Nigeria.
He regretted that Nigeria’s coastal trade still suffers foreign dominance years after attempt to have the cabotage create a market for indigenous shipping.
He however harped on the need to differentiate between policy as a roadmap and laws for implementing and enforcing that policy direction.
On her part, Mrs. Mfon Usoro while acknowledging the fact that Nigeria was blessed with abundant natural resources in the sea as well as extensive Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) compared with her neighbouring countries, however regretted that government did not recognize that that was the resource that they could generate wealth from.
She noted that it was sad that the government did not recognize the shipping sub-sector as one of the key economic sectors for Vision 2020 as there was no mention of shipping sector in the document even when aviation section had a mention.
In her words,” Why did shipping not have a mention? You had national and international experts working with Nigerians but the beautiful error that they made was that shipping was not identified as one of the key economic sectors. They identified manufacturing, Finance, Solid Minerals, Energy and agriculture as the key economic sectors. So, what happened was that they developed working groups focused on these key economic sectors and those focus groups worked and developed policies with focus on those five sectors that have been identified. They also brought in policies that affected other government agencies that will garner resources towards the development and progress of these sectors. That is why you have incentives by the Central Banks, NDIC, NIPC etc. focused on those areas but not on shipping. That was a clear evidence of sea blindness in our policy formulation and it also affects implementation.
“They forgot that all of those industries that were identified as key sectors all depended on shipping apart from perhaps Finance which is service, the manufacturing and all of them, where are you going to bring all of those things from, it is by sea transport. So, that was a major fault and as we now almost have reached 2020, I am sure that they have started work again in extending or developing another one. So, what we want to do now from this focus group is to identify that error and make sure they rectify it as they do the next set of policy”.
While calling for an efficient sector-specific approach in policy development and implementation in the maritime sector and the need for integration of sectors in transport, road infrastructure, rail for shipping policy development, she also harped on the importance of Nigeria deciding on an area of focus and develop such area so as to emerge a global leader in that area.
She identified the areas to include manpower development for seafaring, shipping, ship finance and law, insurance, shipyard, research and development amongst others.
Also speaking, Mr. Taofik Adegbite while underscoring the place of the private sector and corporate governance in shipping suggested that the private sector should take the lead in shipping while the government follows in that direction.
He harped on the importance of regulatory compliance and international best practices as according to him, shipping is a global business and needed to deal with negative perception.
He faulted a situation where huge taxes are slammed on ships acquired by Nigerians in form of duty by the Nigeria Customs Service while foreign ship owners work at an advantage bringing in ships on a temporary importation basis and paying next to nothing compared to the indigenous operators arguing that the reverse should be the case.
Earlier in his opening speech, the President, Nigerian Chamber of Shipping, Mr. Andy Isichei said that part of the key role of the Chamber was advocacy adding that they had combed the environment and realized that they needed to change the narrative as far as the Nigeria’s shipping policy was concerned.
He noted that some people argued that the National Shipping Policy of 1987 which he believed had been updated by the National Assembly was essentially the law that set up the Nigerian Maritime Authority (NMA) which later metamorphosed to NIMASA and that it was not wide enough to cover the initiative that Nigeria require to deepen it into shipping industry and the global arena.
“So, what we have done is to invite key stakeholders to discuss it deeply so that at the end of the day ideas will come up, we look at them, explore them, form a caucus group to take a second look at them and break them into those issues we need to deal with immediately to harvest the low hanging fruits, the ones we need to attend to in the short term medium term and so on. That is the purpose of this meeting”, he stated.
Meanwhile, stakeholders at the meeting have agreed that the shipping sub-sector needed an expanded policy framework to guide the sector on a defined path of growth even as they noted the need for the government to accord the maritime industry its due recognition so as to engender economic growth and prosperity.
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