…Calls for incentives
The Nigerian Indigenous Ship owners Association (NISA) has called on the Federal Government to provide incentives like other countries of the world that would make the nation’s seaports attractive for more ships to call on them.
The President of NISA, Capt. Niyi Labinjo who made this submission at a forum in Lagos noted that while Nigeria was working with its local laws, it must not lose sight of what its competitors were doing thus the need to ensure that it was in competition enough.
“When we talk about incentives, it is the incentives for the use of the ports. I have right to go to Togo as against coming to Nigeria. Why am I coming to Nigeria? What is so special about my coming to Nigeria? I have the right to go to Ghana or to go elsewhere”.
“In Long Beach, in America as at today, in order to make their ports attractive, do you know what they have done? They introduced certain incentives and one of the incentives is that for complying with green revolution, we give you six thousand dollars on every ship call”.
“And how did they do that? In Long Beach Island, they said for each time you visit our ports and your ship does not pollute our air, we give you six thousand dollars per ship call. They even went further, they said, look, because if you proceed at a very slow speed, you are not likely to emit enough Nitrogen dioxide, so, for every TEU (Twenty Equivalent Unit), we give you five dollars. What are they doing? They are making their ports more attractive”.
“What we have done in our own situation is that because of lack of good regulation, because of lack of fair competition, because of these issues, there is intra-port competition, there is no inter-ports competition. There must be and everything as I said must start with the ship at the centre, if the ship is not there, there is nothing there”, he said.
The NISA boss called for collective actions on the part of the stakeholders in the maritime industry saying that no matter how much one may love Nigeria, such a person cannot unilaterally take an action that would have effect on the entire nation and its economy.
He advised that whatever the Nigerian Shippers’ Council would do, it must do it in consultation with all the stakeholders in the industry bearing in mind all the issues that had to do with fairness.
While reminding the stakeholders that it was the shipping cost that they were all sharing, he however reminded them that that the shipping cost were not inelastic since a ship owner must relate the cost of his or her service to that of his competitors in the market in order to remain in business.
“If my competitor is going to do his own at the cost of one Naira, fifty Kobo, I will be completely out of order if I should say that mine is five Naira. It is the shipping cost that we are all sharing”, Labinjo stated.
Photo: Capt. Niyi Labinjo, President NISA
