Mariner Calls For Talks On Cabotage Act

A stakeholder in the
Marine Transport business, Cosmas Ekeogu, has advocated for a round-table talk between Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), the Federal Ministry of Transport and Indigenous Ship Owners and managers in the industry in order to revisit and amend the Cabotage Act of 2003, and make it more effective with modern day realities.
Ekeogu made the call in a chat with The Tide correspondent in his office in Port Harcourt, recently.
According to him, the coastal and Inland Shipping Act of 2003, restricted the use of foreign vessels in domestic coastal trade as well as promote the development of a Cabotage Vesel Financing Funds (CVFF) and other related issues.
He posited that the Act was to increase indigenous participation in maritime industry because the sector was earlier dominated by foreign ship owners and agents.
The stakeholder noted that foreign shipping companies and foreign trades like carriage of crude and ownership of ocean liners had over 90 per cent of oil and gas maritime activities in Nigeria before 2003.
Ekeogu, who is also the operations manager of Rangk Ltd, Port Harcourt, a shipping and offshore support service company explained that the vessel financing fund is to enable indigenous  or domestic participation in ship acquisition and engage in coastal trade such as carrying of goods, offshore, maritime operation support services for foreign companies like Shell, Mobil, Total, Schlumberger, Halliburton, Agip and others who are engaged in hydrocarbon exploration, exploitation and subsequent shipment outside Nigeria.
“It is regrettable that foreign company ship owners who operate in Nigeria acquire the juicy contracts and poach nearly 75 per cent of the contracts that exist”, he said.
The Rangk Ltd operations Manager also noted that most times, the International Oil Companies (IOC) brought in from the back doors policies that would only favour the foreign ship owners like the introduction of Oil Vessel Inspection Data Base (OVID).
“Most  IOC now restrict vessels age where as vessels abroad that are operating in field owned by IOC members oversea that are not allowed here. This is to pave way for foreign ship owners to continue their dominance”, he posited.
Ekeogu stressed that the Cabotage Act makes Coastal transportation an exclusive preserve of the indigenous operators, but most expatriate companies now smartly engage Nigerians as face value Directors, thereby indigenalising the foreign company.
“The Act stipulates 60 per cent equity holding by Nigerians but what is seen is the ceremonial ownership”, he opined.