Owners Association (NITOA) has appealed to the Federal Government to save the sector from imminent collapse due to huge overhead costs, including high cost of diesel. Mr Joseph Overo, President of NITOA, said in Lagos that the productivity of its members had nosedived as a result of high cost of diesel used in operating the trawlers.

Overo said that 85 per cent of the sector operations depended solely on diesel, adding that the operators were incurring huge overhead costs.

“This is so because it is only in the fishing industry that diesel alone accounts for 85 per cent of the production cost,” he said.

According to him, each vessel consumes an average of 60 tonnes of diesel daily and that is N10 million per 45-day fishing trip. He suggested that the Federal Government should approve direct allocation of diesel from the major marketers to the operators.

“We are appealing to government to also subsidise diesel. If the farmers enjoy fertiliser subsidy, then the fishing sector should have an incentive to enable the sector to thrive,” he said.

“The supply of this product to the industrial fishing operators requires government intervention and support, if all the fishing companies would not fold up, he said.

Though, Nigeria’s fish products are among the best in the world, the price of our exported products has remained static in the international market. This is because we are unable to dictate price due to the cheap production cost occasioned by grants, aids and subsidies obtained by our competitors from their various governments which put them at an advantage,” he said

Overo also said that it had been difficult to pass the increase in cost of production to local consumers. The trawler operator explained that most fishing companies had been laying off workers as a result of “long and painful vessel idling time at their various jetties”.

He said operators in the sector had written letters to President Goodluck Jonathan and various ministries for solutions to the problems.

Overo noted that some countries that had similar problems took measures to

cushion the negative effects by giving subsidies to operators of their fishing fleet.

“We are appealing to the government to emulate such countries. This good gesture, if applied in Nigeria, is bound to bring immense benefits, including creation of new jobs and increased domestic fish production for food security.

He said government’s support would lead to an increase in foreign exchange earnings through export, safeguard of existing investments in fisheries and encourage new local and Foreign Direct Investments to the subsector,” he said. Overo noted that NITOA contributed largely to the local fish production and generated employment for more than 500,000 Nigerians.

He said that NITOA members owned and operated about 235 fishing and shrimp vessels and had made investments of more than N30 billion on vessels, fish and shrimp processing facilities, cold stores, equipment repair and jetties.