We’re Set to Release Cabotage Fund, FG Assures Shippers

Festus Akanbi

The federal government has expressed its readiness to disburse the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) to enable indigenous shipping operators to enable them to compete favourably with their foreign counterparts.

The CVFF, an intervention fund created for the development of indigenous shipping capacity in Nigeria, has grown to $350 million in 19 years of its existence.

It is meant to enable indigenous shippers to maintain existing vessels and also to acquire new ones.

The Minister of Transportation, Malam Mu-azu Sambo made the declaration about the planned disbursement of the fund when he visited the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), Area Office in Port Harcourt.

The ministry stated yesterday in Abuja that the minister described the CVFF as a low-hanging fruit that would support the maritime economy, which could replace oil revenues if properly handled.

While inspecting work at the BUA Ports and Terminal Limited situated at the Rivers Port, Sambo expressed delight at the progress of work and urged the operators to ensure completion by 2025.

He assured that as part of the railway modernisation policy, rail lines would be linked to the seaports for effective and efficient haulage of cargoes.

The CVFF was inserted into the Coastal and Inland Shipping Act of 2003 otherwise referred to as Cabotage Act 2003, to provide funds for vessel acquisition amongst indigenous operators.

The source of the fund is a two per cent contribution by indigenous ship owners from every contract executed in the nation’s waters.

The disbursement of the CVFF is backed by the provisions of Section 42(1)-(2) of the Cabotage Act 2003, which aims to promote the development of indigenous ship acquisition capacity by providing financial assistance to Nigerian operators in domestic coastal shipping.

The former Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, had, in 2021, said the fund had grown to $195 million between 2003 and 2021.

Amaechi had, sometime in 2020, set up a committee to develop fresh guidelines for the disbursement of the fund. Part of the new guidelines was that only indigenous ship owners who had contributed to the fund were eligible to access the loan.

The current chairman of the committee for the national fleet implementation, who is also Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, Emmanuel Jime, recently confirmed to journalists that incentives from the government were the major reason the national fleet was yet to see the light of the day.

He disclosed that there were incentives that needed to be put in place for the private sector to get on board and buy into the project, noting that those incentives were yet to be released by the government agencies that were supposed to support the project.