CILT decries NIMASA’s handling of Cabotage regime, opens up on Expo 2018
The National President of Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT), Mr. Ibrahim Abubakar Jibril has decried the unexplainable reasons behind the withholding of Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) by the supervising agency, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA).
Whereas industry followers say more than $100m has accumulated on the fund in the last couple of years of its existence, Jibril noted that “The Cabotage Act as we currently have it has not been reasonably implemented. The cargo carriage enforcement provisions are favourable, but the country is presently facing poor capital outlay for taking advantage of that”.
He said “The procedure and processes for assisting local ship owners to increase their capacity in ship acquisitions of competitive standard to key into the Cabotage Regime have not adjudged to be difficult to meet by the operators.
“In the face of these challenges, Nigeria has continued to take the backside in shipping. It is in part, an effort towards streamlining these processes and procedures that the review was contemplated. In that regard, a review of the Act to make it more flexible and participatory would help in entrenching the full advantage of the ‘Cabotage Act’.
While agreeing that “the Cabotage Compliance Strategy recently adopted and being driven by the new Leadership in NIMASA is aimed at ensuring indigenous capacity, employment creation and generating wealth,” CILT boss was quick to note that “We need to put a tab on NIMASA to ensure that they deliver accordingly”.
On the upcoming Multimodal West Africa Expo 2018 being put together by the CILT and other stakeholders’, Jibril said “The essence of the Expo 2018 is to create awareness of abundant business opportunities for operators in logistics and transport industry in Nigeria and the West African Sub-region. Accordingly, the Multimodal West Africa Expo 2018 would avail members of the Institute, especially Corporate Members the networking platform as well as access to manufacturers and equipment services companies that they are longing to connect with”.
“They will also have the rear opportunity of meeting their representatives and sharing experiences. I see it as a positive development, where access to the critical needs of the organizations is provided on that platform.
He said “I am looking forward to seeing our Corporate and individuals Members identifying partner organizations that can help with resolving their logistics and transport challenges. A lot of them are known to be facing intermodal connectivity challenges in their logistics chain across our borders. In connection with that, and with the expected participating Organisations, we hope to use the platform to network and resolve some of these challenges”.
