By Eguono Odjegba

The management of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, has expressed its commitment to ensuring that the mandate on the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund, CVFF, is executed.

Peterside Dakuku

Speaking against the insinuations in some industry quarters, that the government may have deployed the CVFF to other uses, NIMASA Director General, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, said last week that the matter is receiving necessary attention, hinting, however, that the fund is not sufficient to achieve any major milestone in the present circumstances.

Peterside who spoke at the second edition of the agency’s Maritime Forecast presentation also said that efforts are on-going to attract other windows of support to enhance capacity development of local ship operators.

His words, “We have been engaging with government at the highest level to push for special intervention fund, special interest rate and other incentives that will drive optimal performance in the sector.

“We shall not relent in our drive to put the right framework together to help beneficiaries and investors have good return on investment.

“The country is also making huge investments in human capacity development in the sector, which means that more Nigerians will get involved in shipping, especially, in shipping operations”

Stakeholders who are not happy that the CVFF disbursement has suffered undue delays have continued to demand for the fund disbursement.”

A frontline maritime player in the shipping sub sector, and Managing Director of Victory Energy Resources Limited, Otunba Sola Olattunji, claimed that government is playing an unacceptable politics with the CVFF, which he said is a dedicated fund for fleet development and should be treated as such.

He said, “The CVFF was actually contributed by foreign ships coming to Nigeria and they have been contributing that fund for 13 to 14 years but we don’t know if that money is there.

“So you can see part of the problem we are talking about. If it was a capital reserved to empower ship owners and maritime operators, and the law was put in place, why should you be begging anybody to implement the law?

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“The money is meant for members of Ship Owners Association of Nigeria, to support them to acquire and expand their fleet.”

Also speaking on the development, ship brokerage agent and maritime resource person, Mr. Charles Okorefe, identified lack of policy focus as the reason for the non-disbursement of the Fund. However, Okorefe acknowledged the inadequacy of the CVFF to provide a strong steer in driving local ship fleet.

He stated: “In the past fifteen years or so the CVFF came into effect, nothing substantial has been done in terms of disbursement. And because of that when players go out to bid for contracts from NNPC or the foreign majors, they are not able to compete because their vessels are old; many of them are not sea worthy.   And there is no way you can compete with the more formidable foreign ship owners who have all the resources and niche to drive their trade when you are coming with rickety vessel.

“It is not as if we lack expertise or operators, we have them, but do they have the capacity, no. Do our banks understand shipping financing, no.

“Even if they do, they are weak in terms of their capital base, so they cannot finance vessels acquisition; that is the truth. And the fund in the CVFF as we speak, they say in the region of $120 million is not even enough to buy a very good ocean going vessel.

“So what this means is that the FGN still needs to assist that Fund and assist indigenous ship owners so that the Cabotage Trade dream will not be a mirage.”