NIMASA may have diverted CVFF - Ship owner

Tayo Oladipupo

A ship owner and one of the stakeholders in the maritime industry, Otunba Sola Olatunji has accused the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), of playing the ostrich game with the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) because the agency may have diverted the funds into other use.

He noted that nothing could have justified the delay in the disbursement of the controversial funds for the past 14 years if not that NIMASA has tampered with it.

Otunba Olatunji while speaking with our correspondent in Lagos at the weekend and arguing that the fund had become problematic because it may no longer be available, challenged the government to buy the vessels and hand them to associations or group of ship owners as a way to show that the fund is still in its coffers.

According to him, if the fund had been disbursed in consonance with the purpose for which it was intended, the situation of indigenous ship owners would not have been as precarious as it is in the country today.

His words, “The CVFF was actually contributed by foreign ships coming to Nigeria and they have been contributing that fund for 13 to 14 years but we don’t know if that money is there.

“So you can see part of the problems we are talking about. If it was a capital reserved to empower ship owners, and maritime operators, and the law was put in place, why should you be begging anybody to implement the law?

“Law is law, they should implement it immediately. Fifteen years down the line, the people in NIMASA have decided to sabotage it in connivance with other agencies of government including NNPC.

“They prefer to promote foreign economy at the expense of their own economy.

“If the government had implemented the CVFF, by now, it would have been a complete departure from what we are seeing today.

“If the money is truly for local development of shipping, let them buy like two ships for each group and tell them how to manage them at least to demonstrate their commitment.

“If they know the money is still there, let them go and buy the vessels and bring them and we will now pay back the money after all, the money is meant for members of the associations”.

He however noted that some beneficiaries of the funds in the 80s who did not pay back the fund formed part of the fear of government not to have released the fund before now.

He suggested that such persons should not be allowed to benefit from the new disbursement saying government should put a close monitoring mechanism in place for prompt refund of the fund by the associations.

When asked what will happen to ship owners who do not belong to any association, he quipped that if they are real operators, they can benefit by having a special arrangement with government to secure the fund.