Former Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers\u2019 Council (NSC), Barr. Hassan Bello, has charged the Federal Government not to designate any of its agencies as the lead agency to drive the blue economy if it actually wants Nigeria to make progress in the sector.
\nBello, who made this call in his remarks at the 10th anniversary, lecture and awards of the Primetime Reporters in Lagos, midweek, advised the Federal Government to avoid the mistake made during the Cabotage era when it designated an agency as lead agency and the rest was now history.
\nHe said for the sector to succeed, it required everyone\u2019s contribution, urging the Minister to allow the private sector to drive the blue economy.
\nAccording to him, \u201cTwo things which we must be very careful about is to make.mistake, like we did with cabotage. If we remember carefully, Cabotage was coastal and Inland shipping, but that inland shipping was not emphasized.
\n\u201cIt was just for supply of oil and gas to the mother vessel, we couldn\u2019t trade as we were doing from Asaba to Baro in Niger State, or carry cement or even petroleum products. So, we cannot restrict that to customs.
\n\u201cSecondly, don\u2019t give the Blue Economy to an agency to say it is the lead agency because everybody must have contributions to the Blue Economy. As we want to do, we have seen agencies struggling to have seminars on Blue Economy, it\u2019s not even a government thing.
\n\u201cAllow the private sector to take over this blue economy, don\u2019t create fantastic departments and overload into the private sector. This is what is our problem.
\n\u201cWhen we had the Cabotage, it was a NIMASA thing and when you talk about Cabotage, no! don\u2019t go there, what is your own with Cabotage? So, Cabotage was colonized, the Blue Economy should not be colonized. We should have the ramification of that Blue Economy to make sure that everything trickles down\u201d.
\nHe however, noted that there had been a lot of progress by the various organs of government even before the designation of the Blue Economy Ministry saying, \u201cBlue Economy has always been there just as we had the red economy, which is characterized by China\u2019s quest for export for state directed economy.
\n\u201cWe even have the grey economy, which is that which is informal. We have the green economy and all shades of economy. So, it\u2019s not new that we have the Blue Economy, what has been the call by stakeholders is for us to have a ministry that will cater for transportation and transportation is a cardinal or even the paramount part of the Blue Economy.
\n\u201cI know we have sustainable use of ocean resources and many other things, but when you talk about the Blue Economy, the central point is the use of ocean and the inland waterways and other resources for diversification of our economy as the Convener has said\u201d.
\n\u201cWe have to be conscious, concerted and even calculated to make sure that it works for us. It\u2019s not just fancy thing that there\u2019s a ministry for blue economy. There must be active participation of stakeholders and the involvement of the private sector to harness the resources and not anything fancy or pretentious. The government must involve the private sector.<\/p>\n
By: Stories by Nkpemenyie Mcdominic, Lagos<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers\u2019 Council (NSC), Barr. Hassan Bello, has charged the Federal Government not to designate any of its agencies as the lead agency to drive the blue economy if it actually wants Nigeria to make progress in the sector. Bello, who made this call in his remarks at the 10th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":340185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=340170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":340202,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340170\/revisions\/340202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/340185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=340170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=340170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=340170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}