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FG to bar foreign ships from Nigerian waters

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The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency has revealed plans to phase out cabotage waivers in the next five years.

The Director-General, NIMASA, Dr Dakuku Peterside, who stated this in an interview with Channels tv on Thursday, said the agency was working towards a time when foreign-owned vessels will not be allowed to trade on Nigerian waters.

He said,

We have rolled out a five-year cabotage waiver cessation plan. That means that in the next five years, there are a number of waivers we would no longer grant.

“So we expect that most vessels that would be trading within our waters will be built in Nigeria, we already have shipbuilding yards. Most vessels will be flagged Nigeria and most vessels must be owned by Nigerians, we are not going to allow foreign-owned vessels at some point.”

Speaking further, he said the Federal Government has made planned to have a national fleet which would be private-sector driven.

“The direction of the world is that the private sector people are in a better position to run businesses. As a country, as a reason of national pride, creating employment, reasons for security consideration and other economic reasons, we pushed for the creation of a national fleet.

“The transport minister’s dream, which has the president’s endorsement, is that let it be private-sector driven, the country might just have minimal equity in the national fleet. We have that plan and we have set up a team led by the executive secretary of the Shippers Council. We believe that when it comes to fruition, we will have a shipping line that will fly the national flag.”

Dakuku urged Nigerians to maximise opportunities in the maritime sector.

“We need to train our people so that they would be able to take advantage of the opportunities when there will be a complete cessation of waivers. Nigeria can export seafarers to other countries. In the next three years, we should be able to have 5,000 seafarers with international certification,” he said.

Dakuku said the seafarers would result in billions of foreign remittances for Nigeria.

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