Nigerian ship owners are competing poorly despite an import oriented market, and control only ten percent of the nation’s estimated N2 trillion business, while better funded and organised big global operators take up 90 percent, BusinessDay has learnt.
Nigeria is an import based economy, where 100 percent of the 877,737 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers and 100 million metric tonnes of cargoes are imported annually on oceangoing container carriers.
Over 50 percent of Nigerian owned shipping companies are said to be out of business, such that most of the few remaining companies are trapped in repayment of bank loans worth over $3 billion (N480 billion) according to statistics from the Nigerian Shipowners Association (NISA).
A recent survey by Ships and Ports Communications Limited, states that of every 12 indigenous shipping companies, only two are viable, while the other 10 representing 83 percent of the companies surveyed, are either completely dead or comatose.
Informed maritime sources reveal that Genesis Worldwide Shipping, a Nigerian company which used to operate over six ships four years ago, has completely gone under, with not a single ship to operate. Joseph Sammy Nigeria Limited was described by one of its staff as “almost dead”. The only vessel left in the company’s fleet, MT Kemepade, was stolen recently and taken to a ship breaking yard in Ghana, before the owners found out, while companies like Equitorial Energy, Oceanic Energy, Morlap Shipping, Peacegate, Pokat Nigeria Limited, Al-Dawood Shipping and Potram Nigeria Limited, are struggling to survive.
Indigenous ship owners have over 200 oceangoing vessels, 700 offshore supply vessels, and about 90 percent of these vessels are said to be lying idle, while the remaining 10 percent usually secure contracts on short-term basis.
Further investigations revealed that some of the reasons for their predicament are poor funding, lack of quality vessels and shortage of skilled crew on Nigerian owned vessels, as required for them to qualify to do business.
Local ship owners often claim though, that they are being unfairly treated and that the Cabotage Act is being poorly implemented to their detriment.
“Nigeria is an oil producing country that does average 2.2 million barrels per day amounting to over 60 million barrels per month, yet indigenous ship owners handle less than 20 percent of the oil lifting jobs”, says Isaac Jolapamo, chairman of NISA.
Jolapamo, says not less than 50 percent of Nigerian shipping companies have been thrown out of business due to poor implementation of the Coastal and Inland Shipping Act (Cabotage Law) of 2003, and also claims that the constant granting of ministerial waivers to foreign vessels to participate in domestic shipping, reserved solely for local firms is a major reason why their businesses are dying.
By: AMAKA ANAGOR
