By Eguono Odjegba

The Secretary General of the Maritime Organisation of West and Central Africa, MOWCA, Dr. Paul Adalikwu, has commenced talks with Afreximbank to open ship financing and procurement of other maritime asset opportunities for African investors and maritime stakeholders.

Both organizations agreed on the need to expand maritime business opportunities and strengthen the planned Africa-wide cabotage regime to boost investments and generate jobs, at virtual bilateral meeting recently.

Adalikwu informed Dr. Gainmore Zanamwe, Afreximbank Acting Director, Trade Facilitator & Intra African Trade that MOWCA’s efforts to achieve easy access to credit for maritime businesses to revive state-owned shipping lines established in West and Central Africa between 1975 and 1990, all of which have ceased to exist due to funding constraints.

He also observed the need for port infrastructure development financing for seamless movement of goods from the ports, plus the need to build inland dry ports and warehouses for landlocked countries, for storage of import/export goods.

The SG said the demise of state owned shipping lines left the business to existing small scale sea carriers in Nigeria and elsewhere in the continent, creating an unhealthy dichotomy where seaborne trade has become dominated by foreign giant shipping lines from Europe and Asia, leaving Africa and MOWCA with just port call fees, even as Africa pay registration fees of their vessels in some member states , leading to capital flight.

He argued that for the objectives of AfCTA to be realized, there must be African owned vessels plying the continent. He further explained that present day shipping requires the modernization of African ports, intermodal connectivity with other modes of transport, such as rail, road, pipeline and inland waterways, including the development of dry ports to solve the problem of occasional congestion.