Worried by the recent report that the Federal Government had no money to establish the Regional Maritime Bank in Nigeria, the Nigerian Shipowners Association (NISA) has advised government to use the Cabotage Vessel Finance Fund (CVFF) seed money to establish the bank which will solely serve the maritime needs of the country and the sub-region.Minister of Transport, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi had said at a function in Accra, Ghana recently that the Federal Government could assist the promoters in various other ways to establish the bank but lacked money to give as a result of the prevailing recession in the country.
Reacting to this, the president of NISA, Capt. Dada Labinjo, stated that the government should channel the CVFF proceed to set up the bank, arguing that as a creation of Cabotage Act in section 42, the fund is a proceed contributed by operators for the purpose of indigenous shipping capacity development and therefore not owned by the government.
According to him, “we are only seeking the approval to use the fund from the government, we are not asking government to give us money. They can use it as seed money to establish a maritime bank, which is basically a commercial bank too, but specialized in nature instead of transferring the fund to the Bank of Industry (BOI), which is for manufacturing.”
He said that Nigeria has the money but not enough market. However, other member countries of the Maritime Organization of West and Central Africa (MOWCA) don’t have money, their spread is an extension of the market for the bank.
Labinjo said the bank is an investment that could attract investors from even landlocked countries as what matters is the return on investment.
He upbraided the minister and the members of national fleet implementation committee for keeping as secret details of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Nigeria and PIL of Singapore over the establishment of the new national carrier.
Labinjo said that NISA has articulated five reasons why the document should be in public domain for debate and input collated from stakeholders.
The reasons, according to him, include that “Amaechi led the delegation on behalf of the government, the money used for the trip is tax payers’ money; there is a lot of interest in the transaction, those who went to Singapore are public servants.”
“They should not wait for us to read from MMS Plus what the MoU is all about. They should make it public; it is not a secret document. I learnt of two things from the MoU. One, that PIL has 40 and Nigerian private sector, 60 percent. But the question remains: 40 and 60 percent of what? Two, they are demanding that the government guarantees cargo availability from the three tiers of government. We can’t make informed comments with these”, NISA President asserted.
