The Nigerian Maritime Administration and
Safety Agency NIMASA, has foreclosed early of the Cabotage Vessel
Financing Fund CVFF, currently estimated at over N100billion.
The CVFF, which is derived from the two
per cent deductions from all contract value on ships operating within
the nation’s coastal and inland waters under the Coastal and Inland
Shipping Cabotage Act 2003, was designed to enable indigenous ship
owners acquire ships that would enhance their ability to partake in the
coastal and inland region. Director General of the agency, Dr. Dakuku
Peterside, who gave this hint in Lagos at the just concluded World
Maritime Day in reaction to repeated calls for the disbursement of the
fund by industry stakeholders, admitted that the fund was intact, but
insisted that it must not be disbursed in a hurry.
According to him, the agency is still
doing house-keeping on the funds with a view to ensuring that all the
laid down procedures were duly followed in the disbursement to forestall
a repeat of what happened to similar intervention funds floated in the
past by the Federal Government.
He clarified: “The rate of recovery of
the Ship Acquisition and Ship Building Fund SASBF, was 34 per cent while
that of the Aviation Fund was less than 51 per cent and so we and so we
are not ready to make such mistakes of the past, hence the need to
follow due process.
“It will take a minimum of one year to
complete the processes associated with the disbusement of the fund in
line with guidelines set by the enabling laws and if you try to do
otherwise, you might end up in jail and I will send you bread and pure
water”, Peterside added.
He, however, disclosed that the agency
was liaising with the Federal Ministry of Transport to re-engineer the
fund for better peformance as well achieving the core objectives for
which it was established.
The NIMASA-boss, who took a swipe at
some stakeholders over calls for the use of the Maritime Fund, cited
Section 16 of the NIMASA Act 2007, which empowers the agency to apply
the funds appropriately, adding that this has always been done since the
agency’s inception.
Peterside charged indigenous ship owner
to take a cue from Marine Platforms, an indigenous shipping company,
which recently acquired a tanker vessel from Norway with the assistance
of NEXIM Bank of the country without any recourse to the CVFF.
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