This move aims to create jobs for the local shipping industry
NIMASA aims to enforce an aspect of the Coastal and Inland Shipping Act, 2003, popularly referred to as the Cabotage Act, as there are indications that the agency may have embarked on measures aimed at cutting down on the issuance of waivers to foreign ships operating on Nigerian waters.
Leadership reports that this fresh move was to ensure that cargoes are available for indigenous vessels to lift, thereby creating jobs for the local shipping industry which is at the brink of extinction.
The Cabotage Act offers the right of first refusal to indigenous vessels. However, for over a decade since the enactment of the local content law, foreign vessels have enjoyed waivers on this aspect of the Cabotage Act, making it impossible for local ships to get job.
The development has continued to threaten the existence and development of the indigenous shipping industry.
The president of the Nigerian Indigenous Shipowners Association (NISA), Captain Niyi Labinjo, while disclosing the NIMASA’s move to cut down on the waivers, said the gesture was “a laudable one.
The agency has promised that it would pursue measures that would ensure that the Nigerian ship service users patronise the (local) ship service providers and you know that if they insist that the Nigerian ship service users must rely on the Nigerian ship service provider that means they can no longer go to the foreign shipping service providers.
It means the jobs are directly coming back to Nigerians and that they would cut back on waivers.
Source: The Leadership
