Shall-Holma: Sealink Will Usher Competitive Shipping Regime in Africa

The Chairperson of the Sealink Implementation Committee, Mrs. Dabney Shall-Holma, has said the country must build a legacy in the maritime industry through the Nigerian Export-Import Bank funded- Sealink project which seeks to end the undue exploitation of Africans by the international shipping companies.

In an exclusive interview with James Emejo, the former director of commercial shipping services at the Nigerian Shippers Council stated among other things that the project which will be launched by year-end, will boost the country’s drive to diversify the economy and create jobs as well as modernise shipping and make it more competitiveness and affordable in the region and the continent in general

What exactly is the Sealink project?

The Sealink project is actually a regional Sealink project that was conceived, studied, prepared to ensure the integration of the west and central African sub region by trade which is trade integration but also to stretch it across the continent of Africa and ensure the improvement in the intra-African trade statistics.

What necessitated this concept?

We carried out two studies – the first study was motivated by complaints and worries of shipping companies, exporters and importers into the country – whose trade was suffering on account of trans-shipment to Europe. A cargo will leave Nigeria and is going to Liberia or Sierra Leone or Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal – and it would go all the way to Europe and be trans-shipped for weeks and sometimes months before the same cargo is brought back to Africa. Secondly, we also discovered that the cost was three times more because we are allowing then to take it to Europe and bring it back again.

So for cost effectiveness, we wanted to do that. Then for competitiveness and survival of whatever exists as a national fleet or the indigenous players, we needed to protect them. So we said, if we create Sealink, all of them will fall into place because they will now be parties to that Sealink. So why do we want to deprive our nation from getting an alternative to what the multinational shipping companies are providing? And that was how we came about the Sealink and NEXIM Bank has been promoting Sealink initiative from when it was a concept of course, it wasn’t a project but when it became a project, it became a PPP and NEXIM set up a special purpose vehicle (SPV) made up of three component parts.

What is the composition of the SPV?

Well, the SPV has the Sealink consortium partners who are actually owners of either terminals or ships or logistics or also have competences that will help to galvanise and fast track the project. So they are consortium members and there are about 12 of them or more now because we keep signing them on as we need competences in certain areas. Like the person who is responsible for ship vetting and digitalisaion, we just signed him on now. Then you go to the public sector which is made up of essentially government agencies. There are some government agencies that are in the Sealink implementation committee but they relate directly to the maritime industry. They are the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Nigeria Inland Water Ways Authority (NIWA), and the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC) from where I came, because I was a director, commercial shipping services in the NSC. And all these were happening under me. The complaint unit was in my department. So I knew who brought complaints and I know what they needed. And when the first feasibility study was carried out I participated in it so that I could see for myself and confirm the veracity of the information I was receiving. It gave me clarity on what we needed to do. But when it came to promotion and financial support and grant, it also came to political advocacy and NEXIM had been the one supporting this project and doing very well in supporting the project.

You mentioned that there were some hidden costs in current trans-shipment from Europe to Africa, what are these costs?

You see, most of the hidden costs are imbedded in the fact that we didn’t have connectivity and we had no access to each other and that’s why there are too many non-tariff barriers. They are non-tariffed because when you are looking for a way out, you now go and meet somebody who says give me N500, 000 I will do this for you. It’s a non-tariffed barrier because it’s not tariffed. If it is tariffed you are paying taxation to government and you will be happy. But you are paying to somebody else and the cost of non-tariff barriers were so much more than the normal cost. So we needed to also look at that. That was why the feasibility study was carried out and it truly revealed that we needed to do something about our maritime industry. We also must do something about creating access. And how do we create the access? We need to create access on the inland waterways so that as we are coming to the inland waterways we can divert traffic from Lagos to Onitsha. We can divert traffic from Lagos to Ajaokuta and then everybody picks his cargo as it’s being diverted. So we thought it actually makes economic sense to do something like that. And we also saw that the British government did this same thing. You know sometimes, when somebody does something in wisdom and you ignore it and push it aside, a time will come when you’ll have a reflection and say these people just have been clever doing this. They had nothing else, that the inland waterways and to use and was what they were excavating our wealth, carrying and carting them away. And do you blame them? They were our colonial master and they knew what to do. And they expected that when you come in stream, you will go and use the same routine and develop it further so that you can expand the inland waterways and it will became their own Rhine and Danube. But you didn’t do that and they never told you. The chart they prepared they took them back to England and so that’s why we are presently charting.

So, you don’t send a vessel that is very expensive into uncharted waters. If we were going to use normal vessels we would not mind, we will just go and put them there so if anything happens to them or they crack open or they run aground, it doesn’t matter. But you can’t bring a $16 million vessel with echoes sounders and you put it in uncharted waters. If fact, nobody will forgive you. Even the classification society will tell you I am not classifying this vessel for this use. So, you’ll come across a lot of obstacles in trying to navigate approvals and get necessary documentation if you don’t chart your waters. So you must chart your waters and that is why Sealink has taken this long to take-off.

The year 2020 was collapsed, as far as I am concerned it wasn’t in the calendar of my life because nothing happened. Sealink is presently demonstrating adaptability. It is saying okay we have lost one year but it doesn’t matter, we can start running, we can fast-track this project and get it to finish.

What are the challenges confronting the Sealink project?

One major challenge in the maritime industry is funding. No investor comes into the maritime industry expecting to see results instantaneously. You don’t expect to see return on your investment and so it is a long gestation investment. It’s an investment that you must tirelessly follow through. But you must believe that it has capacity to bring in yields. You must believe that revenue will come at the end. So you will follow it gently and carefully, you don’t rush into it. So when we were talking in the days and years gone by, we were doing advocacy. We wanted people to understand and we were trying to create awareness both in the sub region because we went across the West and Central sub-region: we went to Cameroon and did a road show, we went to Ghana and did a road show. It was to actually demonstrate that this is doable between us as African countries. We need to do something about changing the dynamics of our trade as Africans. Others are trading 40 per cent, 50 per cent with one another but our trade is dismal. It’s still below 11 per cent. And we are not even generating must from that trade as Africans. So we need to do something differently. So we were generating that awareness across the length and breadth of central Africa. And we even had an occasion when we engaged South Africa and it was in South Africa they told us that we needed to start talking to North Africa, which North Africa is also willing to join. The East Africans are always open to this kind of opportunities. East Africans are coming together. I know they are mainly people who are a little bit revolutionary because of their Arusha Declaration and all that. So they think African and will want to do everything African. So in their own case, it’s an easy support. So, before we were able to do all these, it took time, it took meetings, consultation, it took seminars and advocacy and road shows.

That was done but to come to the nitty-gritty of the project, we are now looking at establishment of a base because you can’t do shipping without a base. So we have gotten Ajaokuta Second Jetty as the base. It has been ceded to us the Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals and Mines but the main the agreement was signed with the Ajaokuta Steel Complex because they are technically the owners. They are a parastatal under mines. But they needed the support and the blessing of their minister and the minister had been very supportive to the project because he understands it. It’s common and basic economics. You know that if you do something there, if you are able to lift three to 10 million metric tons, you know the kinds of jobs you’ll be creating? Upwards of 25,000 jobs. If we do that and we are able to remove restiveness from Nigeria, even if it is just the restive ness we are able to remove, all of us will be satisfied that we have accomplished something. Because if you get people engaged, people don’t have time to do anything else. Everything a Nigerian wants is to be able to earn a living and once he earns a living legitimately and whatever is happening he is included in it, he would not have any problems.

Amidst the volatile security environment, his do you safeguard the Sealink project?

In designing our security architecture on the inland waterways, we are talking to groups along the inland waterways because we want all of them to be part of what is happening. It is not that the project is happening and it is just crossing your doorstep and you don’t know anything about what is happening. You’re supposed to be part of the project. So, we are currently building alliances and partnerships so that we take ownership of the project and we run with the project as Nigerians for Nigeria.

So when will the Sealink project take-off eventually?

We are going to launch out before the end of this year. We have vessels but the tall vessels cannot start sailing into our waters until the waters are mapped, surveyed and charted. And until we have admiralty charts that we can out in the vessels. All our vessels are brand new. Some were built in 2019 and some have just left the ship yards and that’s why they are being engaged elsewhere where the waters are charted…we cannot bring them now and send them into uncharted waters. Uncharted waters simply means you don’t know what is in the water. So you have to determine what is in the water to create your own route and path by putting navigable and navigational aides.

How do you feel having to spearhead the implementation of the project?

I am someone who is patriotic about Nigeria and I am also someone who is development oriented. So when I look at an issue, I look at it from a global picture and I look at creating sustainable structures. I have done that all my public service career. For 35 years I did nothing but create. So when I see an opportunity to create and whether somebody birth it or somebody is advocating the birth of a project I think is worthwhile I support it 100 per cent. And that is what I did with Sealink. I saw a need, I join the bandwagon and I insisted that we should get to a point where we are building sustainable structures. That is why we are taking a long term lease from the jetty. As for me being a woman, for me my gender and femininity have never been an issue because your knowledge about the industry will also create a different ecosystem for you. It actually transport you outside the comfortable zone that you’re familiar with and make you see things a little differently. If I wasn’t in the maritime industry, I will not be able to appreciate that there is need for paradigm shift. I will not be able to appreciate that you can do this thing differently. You can run a shipping company on a sustainable basis based on a consortium structure. I would have said buy us a vessel and let us manage it. There are people who are more experienced and more comfortable in managing vessels. I have managed a vessel. So what you do as somebody like me who was thrown into the maritime industry is that you take experiences from all the roles you have played and to say that look, if you say you are going to put everything in one basket it might crash. Because if I aske government to but a vessel and I send a very brilliant idea and government sees that it is brilliant and agrees to buy a vessel, what happened to NNSL, what happened to NV Abuja that I managed in the 1990s? They are no more because they were 100 per cent government. There was a lot of political interference. There was a lot of administrative interference. You couldn’t even employ people you thought had competence, you had to employ because somebody sent someone to you and you had no choice than to do that. You now end up with a system that you cannot actually manage properly. So you’re managing as if you’re tip-toeing because you might do something and get removed. And in Nigeria we are so afraid of getting removed from office because we did right. I have seen people who have stood their ground and gave been removed from office and I hail them all the time because to do right is better than to get acclaim falsely. So, I always stand with doing it right. And with the Sealink, we’ve so structured it that nobody can take ownership of Sealink until it goes to the capital market. And it’s going to go to the capital market.

By the time it hits the capital market, it will now be the responsibility of those who buy shares to come and manage the Sealink. If they are sinking their money to buy a structure that has been established and we have determined how much at that point the Sealink would cost, because that is when we will do all the evaluation…we are putting a digitalised system in place. Sealink will take off and consortium partners will continue to manage it for a while, may be six months and then it will hit the capital market. I envisage that in the next three to five years, Sealink will be a transcontinental project and every African will want to belong to Sealink. And I can assure you that if we don’t block it at the capital market to say that only Africans can invest, the Europeans will take the project because they know the value. They’ve done it with Danube and they know what it gives them. They’ve done it on the Rhine and they know what it gives them. American will come and take it because Mississippi is their lifeline. So they know the value of inland water transportation and they’ll take it.