Seafarers Want Govt To Provide Training Vessel For Cadets

Following the  approval for the disbursement of the Cargo Vessel Financing Funds (CVFF) by the Federal Government, Nigerian seafarers have called on Government to purchase a training vessel from the Fund.
Making the call in Lagos, the President, Maritime Professionals Forum, Captain Segun Akanbi, said the disbursement of the CVFF was of little concern to him, but meeting an enduring challenge of sea time by cadets would remain problematic until a training vessel was acquired.
He appealed to government to deploy the fund to purchase a training vessel for the cadets to enhance their capacity.
“As Seafarers, where it concerns us the most is how it would benefit the Seafarers as regards capacity building.
“The Ministry needs to include purchasing of a Training Ship from the CVFF disbursement. If we have a Training Ship like the American NSMV Training Ship with 600 cadets capacity, We can end the ‘No Sea time’ menace and train enough Seafarers for our Cabotage and International ships.
”We do not want a situation whereby they would start bringing ships and be claiming we do not have enough Manpower,” Capt. Akanbi said.