Boosting Indigenous Capacity: Nigerian Maritime Fleet Merges With Regional Sealink Project

·We need shipbuilding and ship repair yards – Bello

Determined to succeed   in the face  of  the unfriendly  fiscal policies against  the establishment of the Nigerian Maritime Fleet in the country, the Nigerian Fleet  Implementation Committee(NFIC)  has incorporated the  Regional Sealink  project into the Nigerian Maritime Fleet initiative.

Confirming this  in Abuja  at the just concluded  Sub-regional workshop  on Port Concession in  West and Central Africa: Impact on Economies  of member states of the Union of African Shippers’ Councils(UASC), the Chairman of the NFIC, Barr Hassan Bello said that the incorporation of the Regional Sealink Project into the Nigerian Maritime Fleet initiative is not only in line with the provisions of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency(NIMASA) Act, but will boost the capacity of the indigenous operators  in Nigeria and the sub-region.

Bello, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council(NSC) identified the need for the establishment of ship building and ship repair facilities as support  infrastructure in the country for the sustainability  of the national fleet, while calling   for   the review of the nation’s flag administration  to be technologically driven and competitive.

He was hopeful that the national fleet project which is a wholly private sector driven initiative would  not run into conceptualization problem as the suspended Nigeria Air project.

He reiterated that the Federal Government has agreed to grant the investors some waivers on some critical areas such as duty on imported ships, tax concessions .

While the aspects of integration of both projects were still sketchy as at press time, the Sealink project is a public –private –partnership initiative  that was initiated by Nigeria Export and Import Bank (NEXIM) on the prompting  of   Manufacturers Association of Nigeria(MAN) Export Group and the National Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mine Association(NACCIMA).

The project is also promoted by  Transimex S. A. Cameroun and others through a special purpose vehicle(SPV), called  Sealink Promotional Company Limited(SPCL) with nominal shareholding sponsorship arrangement.

The project is designed to bridge maritime transport  infrastructure gap, amongst the Economic Community  of West African States(ECOWAS) and the Central African Economic and Monetary Community(CEMAC) member states as well as promote inland waterways operations towards facilitating intra-regional  trade and reduction of non-tariff measures.

It will also facilitate reduction in logistics cost and movement of bulk cargo and intermodal linkages as well as ensure the attainment of Sustainable Development Goal 9 on the investments on infrastructure.

Aimed at also bridging the Africa’s infrastructure gap estimated at about US$41 billion, it will support the growth of the intra –ECOWAS trade from 4.7 million tonnes to over 13.2 million tonnes which has been without a corresponding increase in infrastructure..

Sealink is also seen as the answer to the absence of a dedicated regional shipping to link coastal countries in the regions with over 90 percent of the world’s trade carried by sea, believed to be the most cost –effective way to trade.

    The workshop which featured a Joint Standing Committee Meeting of the UASC, resolved at the end of the two days deliberation that the port concessions exercises within the region have not yielded the intended results and as such they called for a detailed analysis and further studies on the factors militating against the realization of the envisaged benefits.

Acknowledging the huge investments by the investors in the schemes, participants resolved that  port concessions should be implemented transparency and proper integration of  policies and the involvement of all critical stakeholders  to achieve the desired results.

Calling on countries in West and Central Africa sub-region to identify their areas of economic comparative  advantage in trade and transportation and develop them, the participants also called on African countries to develop a process of exporting goods that are higher in value to increase their share of foreign revenue from global trade.

The workshop resolved that ports in West and Central  African countries should integrate to maximize the benefits of economies of scale, while urging countries in the subregion to improve their transport  infrastructure  and connectivity especially to the hinterland  in order to reduce the cost of transportation citing Kenya, Uganda, Congo,-Sudan, as example.

They called for countries in the sub –region to engage in manufacturing of finished goods for export in order to increase their participation in global shipping, even as they agreed that the World Trade Organization(WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement(TFA) should include  aspects of trainings  and capacity buildings  to enhance its implementation in the West and Central African region.

The workshop was organized by UASC in collaboration  with United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and hosted by the Nigerian Shippers Council, an agency under the Federal Ministry of Transportation