BY how much has the N60 billion Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) kept with the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) grown?
This is the poser indigenous ship- owners and others who attended the World Maritime Day, organised by the Ministry of Transportation, want the Minister of Transport (MoT), Mr Rotimi Amaechi, and NIMASA Director-General Dr Dakuku Peterside, to answer.
The CVFF was created by the Coastal and Inland Shipping (Cabotage) Act 2003 to promote indigenous ship acquisition.
Section 42 Part VIII of the Act empowers NIMASA to collect and administer the fund, under the minister’s guidance after approval by the National Assembly.
The ship owners and stakeholders alleged that part of the N60 billon fund had been spent without any development in the industry.
Besides the MoT, nobody knows the amount NIMASA has collected since its inception.
The fund, they said, was established 12 years ago to boost local content.
Counsel to a shipping firm, Mr Dipo Alaka, said the call became necessary, following the arraignment of former Director-General NIMASA Patrick Akpobolokemi, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Alake claimed that the CVFF has grown to millions of dollars without any shipping firm benefiting from it.
Most contributors, he said, did not know the actual amount in NIMASA’s care, adding that it was time the minister and the agency declared the amount since it is just a collector of the fund.
Alaka said his clients were sad that they did not benefit from the fund.
A maritime bank, he said, would be more appropriate to handle the CVFF, adding that NIMASA should not keep the fund anymore.
“The only way the APC-led Federal Government can support the maritime sector is funding.But since the first National Maritime Authority (NMA) Act was created up till NIMASA, all the money that have been allocated for the CVFF, not a dime has been released, showing that there is a problem with the agency saddled with the management of the fund.
“Unconfirmed sources within the agency told my clients that a huge part of the money was tinkered with by a former DG during the last presidential election. If the allegation is true, that as wrong because the money does not belong to NIMASA. The objective was to use it to develop ther local shipping industry which, Amaechi said, he wants to promote.”
He wondered how many shipowners can say the NMA or NIMASA supported them to buy a ship.
