Nigeria Losing N45 Trillion Annually From Shipping

ABUJA, January 25, (THEWILL) - Indigenous Ship Owners Association of Nigeria Wednesday alleged that the country loses about N45 trillion annually due to the preferences giving foreign ship owners over the indigenous owners.

Chairman of the association, Chief. Isaac Jolapamo who disclosed this before the House of Representatives committee on subsidy management said the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, deliberately sidelined ships owned by Nigerians from lifting imported fuel both locally and internationally, during the fuel subsidy regime.

According to him, the NNPC sets unnecessary bulwarks that made it impossible for Nigerian vessels to take part in the lifting of oil that were either imported or locally sourced “because once you fly the Nigerian flag then you are not good enough.”

“No Nigerian ship was used throughout the subsidy regime except a handful of vessels used by the foreign ships that brought in the fuel and this has further shortchanged Nigeria as we lose as much as N3.7trillion monthly in freight or shipping costs that Nigeria should be earning”, he stated.

The president said despite the existence of the Cabotage law in Nigeria, foreign ship owners are still consulted before Nigerian ship owners that the law was crafted for.

The chairman said, “If you look at Section 33 sub section 1 of the Cabotage Act, Nigerian shippers have the exclusive right to the shipment of Local Government, States and Federal Government freight both for exports and imports and Section 37 further amplified it stating that it includes bulk, dry and liquid cargo.”

Chief Jolapamo explained that the Carbotage law that came into existence in Nigeria has been flagrantly thrown aside by Nigerian agencies patronizing foreign ship owners to the detriment of their fellow Nigerians not because we do not have the capacity.

“We have 100 percent capacity to perform as there are more than 250 ships owned by Nigerians and we are easily disqualified not based on the issue of decertification but because our only crime is that we fly the Nigerian flag.

“Today, despite our 100 percent capacity we are doing less than 20 percent and NNPC has not really done well because suddenly they changed their biding methods from international standards to a bogus standard to reflect special interests.”

The ship owners also accused NNPC of engaging in shady deals with foreign ship owners. Chairman of the association Isaac Jolapomo while presenting its position before the adhoc committee claimed that said the corporation’s pre-qualification process is deliberately skewed to exclude local ship owners.

He denied insinuations that lack of adequate insurance coverage was responsible for the exclusion of Nigerian vessels from petroleum products importation, insisting that local ship owners have sound insurance coverage.