Cabotage funds unremitted for three years –Investigation

• Ship owner alleges diversion

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) may not have been remitting the two per cent surcharge proceeds on all contracts performed by vessels on the nation’s coastal waters into designated Primary Lending Institutions (PLI) since 2011, New Telegraph’s investigation has shown.

Four banks were appointed to manage the fund under the Cabotage Vessel Finance Fund (CVFF), to assist indigenous investors in the procurement of ships under the Coastal and Inland Shipping Act 2003. To fast-track the disbursement of the fund, according to the guideline, NIMASA is expected to contribute 55 per cent of the total application of a particular applicant company; the banks will pay 35 per cent of the total and applicant company 15 per cent, making a total of 100 per cent at 5.6 per cent interest rate. The PLIs appointed to manage the fund on behalf of Nigerian ship owners are: Skye Bank, Sterling Bank, Diamond Bank and Fidelity Bank.

These lenders are expected to lend, monitor and manage the CVFF scheme. However, a ship owner, Mr. Osita Onunomi, said that no ship owner had benefited from the fund. Osita, who is the managing director of Mercury Oil and Gas Company, said that his company was among those shortlisted by NIMASA. He explained that when he contacted one of the banks for the $25 million loan he applied for, as directed by the agency, the lender turned him down. “It was from the bank I learnt that the agency had not been remitting the fund to it in the last three years.

This is our contribution for indigenous capacity, the agency is denying us.” Former Transport Minister, Senator Idris Umar, had said that the CVFF surcharge was $193.1 million as at early 2013. There had been delays in the disbursement of the fund in the last three years when the agency said it had shortlisted some shipping companies, which would benefit from the fund. It would be recalled that when the Ship Acquisition and Ship Building Fund (SASBF) was introduced by the defunct National Maritime Authority in the 1990s to encourage ownership of ships by Nigerians, a few genuine Nigerian ship owners benefited and bought ships, but several politicians, ‘briefcase ship owners’ and cronies of the then military junta also dipped their hands into the funds.

It was learnt that most of the money was never recovered and no one was punished. When contacted, the agency’s spokesman, Mr Isichie Osamgbi, a deputy director, public relations, neither responded to the short messaging system (SMS) nor e-mail sent to him.