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• Project blinks under Tinubu’s administration
By Steve Agbota
The inability of the Federal Government to establish a national shipping line after the demise of the Nigeria National Shipping Line (NNSL) is costing the nation’s economy over $7 billion in freight annually.
The $7 billion in freight goes to the account of foreign ship owners lifting Nigerian cargoes especially the dry category. Recognising the loss, the Buhari’s administration in 2016 set up a National Fleet Implementation Committee (NFIC), with a deadline of three years for its actualisation of a new carrier that will fly country’s flag on international waters and provide sea time training for cadets.
Eight years after, Nigeria is still struggling to have ships with its flag on the international waters. This is even as stakeholders say the project remains a day dream under the President Bola Tinubu’s government.
However, Daily Sun learnt that NFIC has submitted its reports to the immediate past Minister of Transportation, Mu’azu Jaji Sambo.
In the report, the committee pointed out some agencies of government as impediments to the project.
The committee accused government agencies in the Federal Ministry of Finance; the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), which are major tax collectors for the Federal Government placed more emphasis on the short-term effect of the national fleet on the economy than the long-term benefits.
Speaking with Daily Sun, the current chairman of the committee for NFIC, who is also Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, Emmanuel Jime, said the fleet implementation committee has actually finished its work.
According to him, the committee had presented its report to the Ministry of Transportation, supervising ministry while awaiting further directive as to the next steps.
“We are about to enable the environment by putting incentives that will allow the private sector to drive the process so that we can have ships carrying Nigerian flags essentially,” he added.
On the agencies under the Ministry of Finance not in line with the committee, he said the committee has submitted its report to the ministry.
“As a matter of fact, we presented the report to the immediate past Minister of Transportation. So it is left for the ministry to now analyse it to give us instructions as to the next steps.
“We haven’t go to the point where we have to engage other agencies that are relevant for the implementation of the report yet. So I cannot confirm if the Ministry of Finance will not be collaborating but I doubt if the ministry will not collaborate.
“No engagement has commence between the committee and other agencies, the ministry of transport has not given the final approval with the report and we have not been given further directives as to what we should do with the next steps.
“Don’t forget, fleet implementation has been misunderstood by many people as if we are about to enact a national carrier that is not what fleet implementation is about. People have to understand this. That the intention of fleet implementation and is quite different from having a national carrier,” he explained.
Recall that the former chairman of the committee and executive secretary/CEO of the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), had expressed worries that a total of $9 billion in terms of freight on dry cargo was earned in Nigeria in 2015, all of which went to foreign ship owners due to the absence of a vessel on Nigeria’s fleet.
“This has had serious negative implications on creating jobs for Nigerian seafarers and cadets including women, the banks, insurance companies, shipbuilding and ship repair yards and the overall economy, a development that makes it urgent for the country to have an enduring national fleet,” he lamented.
