The Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Bashir Jamoh has said that no maritime nation can grow without incentives.
Jamoh who stated this during a panel discussion at the just concluded Nigeria International Maritime Summit (NIMS) which held in Lagos observed that maritime was capital incentive adding that that “there is no how you can say ship owner, stakeholder doing any type of business in the maritime sector does not need palliative and interestingly, all the modes of transportation, over the years, continued to enjoy incentives from the government.”
According to him, “Be it road transport, we have seen it, be it rail, it is 100 percent owned by the government, in air, if you are importing spare parts as an aircraft owner, you have incentive, when you are buying the aircraft, there is incentive.”
While pointing out that it was only the shipping industry that this kind of challenge existed, he however disclosed that on assumption of office, the first thing he did was to struggle for two types of incentives; fiscal and monetary incentives.
“For the fiscal incentive, I am happy to announce that the government has granted approval for that incentive since first week of August. The approval is with the Federal Ministry of Transportation, I have drawn the attention of the Permanent Secretary and I have given her the circular and I have the circular. So, we have gotten the incentive but I don’t owe it a duty to announce that until when they convey it to me, I will now announce it”, he said.
When prodded to give hints of what the incentive was, he said, “Obviously, it is zero duty” for importation of ships and ship spare part.”
He continued, “So, what is remaining now is the monetary incentive. I had discussions severally with the Central Bank Governor and he has given me his own nod and send the ball back to me saying, go and sit down with your stakeholders, discuss the areas that this monetary incentive can come and let us make sure that we address those issue. So, in that regard, I am now interfacing with the stakeholders.”
Photo: Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Bashir Jamoh.
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