Experts Reveal Nigeria Loses $9.2bn Annually To Foreign Shipowners

Maritime experts have disclosed that Nigeria is losing a sum of $9.2bn annually to foreign shipping lines that are handling cargo that a national fleet is supposed to handle.

This was disclosed by a former Chairman of the National Fleet Implementation Committee, Hassan Bello, on Friday at the inauguration of the new executives of the Shipowners Association of Nigeria in Lagos, he said the national fleet should be an initiative of the private sector.

Bello said, “$9.2bn lost annually to foreigners. This is trade that goes to foreign-owned shipping companies or carriers. You could imagine what that could do to our economy if we had a national fleet. The national fleet should be an initiative of the private sector but the government should encourage it."

Bello, a former executive secretary of the Nigerian Shippers Council, reiterated the importance of having indigenous participation in international trade.

According to him, “You know the significance of having indigenous participation in international trade. 90 per cent of international trade is done through the sea, carried by ships from one country to another.

“And we have been missing in action, that’s the whole problem. We need to be elusive, unequivocal, and deliberate in our efforts. And that is why it is important for this association. We will see it as one of the efforts to take us out of the dungeons."

Also, he lamented that Nigeria operated a monoeconomy, wholly dependent on the export of a single commodity, which is crude oil.

He said, “We have to own and operate indigenous tonnage, purely private sector driven by providing incentives that are the function of a government, friendly operating climate, like tax holidays, and a wide range of very important incentives, which other countries have used. We have no time to do that. We are talking about tax holidays. We are talking about fiscal policies, legal, and the policy changes."

Also, the immediate past President of the SOAN, Dr McGeorge Onyung, was displeased over Nigeria not capitalising on the $14tn ocean economy.

Onyung said, “The economy of this country would not improve if we don’t diversify into the ocean economy. The fact is very clear that without shipping, there is no shopping. If you don’t remember anything today, please remember that without shipping, there is no shopping.

“Now, we are building a railway from Lagos to Calabar. I don’t know how much that will cost. I don’t know how long it will take. But all the wagons and the rails must come from China, wherever, by sea. And it should be ships that should bring them in. So, we should start making the money before the railway is constructed."