Shipping Magnate Ogbeifun Probes Nigeria’s Maritime Economy in New Book

The efforts to provide financial aid to Nigerian operators in domestic coastal shipping had been frustrated by a perceivable lack of transparency in the process of fund disbursement, leading to a new book on Nigeria’s Maritime Economy by the 70-year old Benin-born shipping magnate Greg Ogbeifun. Yinka Olatunbosun shares some excerpts of an interview with the author

Last year, you released a seminal book on Nigeria’s maritime life titled ‘Potentials of Nigeria’s Maritime Economy.’ It turns out to be a demystification of the myriads of challenges that plague the maritime sector in Nigeria. As the nation embraces 2022 with the burden of huge borrowing and dwindling revenue, it has become imperative to take a critical look at some of the issues raised in this book which can improve businesses and turn around the economy. Why can it be said that operators in the shipping sector find it difficult to access the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF)?

There is a lack of political will to do the right thing to ensure that that fund is available for people who are illegible. It’s a very simple thing. During former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, the then Minister of Transportation, Idris Umar, decided to work with the then leadership of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) to go through the established guidelines to come up with a list of those eligible to access the fund. These companies that were selected, somehow we were one of the companies, and the list was sent to the minister, who, by law has the final say and decision on the disbursement of funds.

But regrettably, when the list got to him, the minister took that list to the president. When the president saw the list and all the issues, he called for all the files of the eligible companies. We were all invited by the DSS office for the verification of the information about the ownership of the companies. So they did that, believing that Mr. President will ask the minister to disburse the funds. Instead, when Jonathan saw the money there, he asked why the former DG was sitting on that kind of money, and that was the last time we heard of the whole process.

After the change of government, you may recall that the DG of NIMASA was arrested by EFCC to give account because they had plundered the money; all of that has come to nothing. So, when Rotimi Amaechi became minister, he genuinely desired to grow the maritime sector, which means he wanted to see the real emergence of a national line. He had a genuine and honest intention of doing that. He was going to use the targeted funds to put down an equity to attract foreign investors to partner with Nigeria to create a national line. We quickly called his attention that that would be against the law, because the national line is not a Cabotage thing; it’s a global thing. Unlike the way we have it, that’s Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund, for vessels operating in Nigerian waters. When we told him he couldn’t do that, he now tried other means of setting up a committee to find a way round it, and, of course, that hasn’t come to be, for other reasons.

Essentially, what exactly is your book ‘The Potentials of Nigerian Maritime Economy’ set out to do in that sector, both for government and operators like you?

First of all, I attempted to paint the true picture of what’s on ground out there. Maybe when people read the book they will know what the problem is, because the book is everywhere. If they read the book, and see the analysis; the best thing to do is encourage the honourable Minister of transport, working with maritime consultants to come out with guidelines to enable the funds to be disbursed. By returning the money to us doesn’t solve our problems, because we still need the facility. So what happened up till now is that some of us have been, and are still going to commercial banks and seeking loans at costly interest rates, thus making our operation a nightmare. There was an attempt to take some of that money and put it in a commercial bank, which runs contrary to the process of disbursing the funds, and on that basis, the Minister of finance stood against that move. That was what I heard.

From the book, the reader can decipher that there’s a government that would rather give business that was meant for its nationals to foreigners. And so revenues like taxes that ought to come to the government are lost. Can you just walk us through that situation?

It’s unfortunate situation. The maritime sector is a massive platform for job creation. When you have a ship, there are all sorts of other activities around it. Maritime insurance is involved; the crew, the banks; so if you look at the entire value chain, you will see that freighting is just one fraction of the things we are losing, like not getting involved in carrying our own cargo. That’s one of the problems the ship owners face. NNPC once invited us to come up with ideas on how we can collaborate, influence a national fleet of tankers to participate in this project. We took time to make presentations. In the end, it was a complete waste of time. That’s absence of political will.