Nigeria's shipping community advocates penalty clause in proposed law

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

30 Apr 2009

As the local content bill is in the making at the National Assembly, members of the Nigerian shipping community have argued on the need for the law makers to include a clause to specify the nature of sanctions on any stakeholder who acted contrary to the provisions if eventually passed into law by the legislature. The call to specify penalty in the proposed bill form part of the communiqu at the end of the first Nigerian ship owners summit organised in Lagos at the weekend by the Nigerian ship owners association (ISAN)
But before the call there was a debate as to whether there was need to promulgate a law before Nigerians could be involved in the lifting of liquid cargoes either at the coastal and inland level or across the seas.
A maritime lawyer and senior advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Olisa Agbakoba, who was guest speaker at the summit, had said there was no need for a law before involving the Nigerian shipowners in the lifting of crude oil in view of the existing trade and business agreement that could have taken care of their involvement many years ago.
The senior advocate said there have been many other laws in the country, which are yet to be properly implemented by the appropriate institutions.
It is shocking that Nigerian government will require a bill to give Nigerians a chance in shipping .What we need is the intent to involve Nigerians. We have had many local content bills, one of which is the cabotage. The question is how can we Nigerians get a fair share of shipping business? Will legislation allow them? Look at the housing for all by the year 2000, it did not work. We in the sector will need to make our position felt by the government. We in the shipping community will need to have close collaboration with the National Assembly. We don't show the strength that we have. The maritime community is too quiet, so government don't seem to know what we are suffering. We have to look inward. The joint venture formula and the production sharing formula in the oil and gas sector are written by Nigerians. So the local content can be included in these agreements. So we don't need additional laws," he concluded.
But the former Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Chief Adebayo Sarumi, was quick to oppose the Senior Advocate when he said: "I disagree with Agbakoba that it should not be law that is required" as he argued that the present three tiers of government are different from what we used to have. He said the present executive arm of the government believe in the rule of law while the legislature is now more responsible to the people while the judiciary is seen to be doing very well.
I disagree with Agbakoba that it should not be law that is required. Let us take it that we have a government now that believe in the rule of law, let us take it too that we have a legislature that know that they are representing the people. If we have the judiciary that is doing well, then we need a law on local content," he said
The president of master mariners, Captain Adejimi Adu, also agreed with Sarumi on the need for a law of local content to be put in place, saying operators in the oil and gas sectors believe in laws.
"I believe that what we need to do is to ask where we are, what is our interest and how do we achieve our interest. The law has to be put in place. Most players in the oil and gas sector believe in law. We need to do assessment of what we have before we can allocate percentage of carriage to ourselves. Nigeria as a whole does not appreciate the importance of maritime. There are people selling handkerchief on the street, yet there is an opportunity to create jobs and we are overlooking it. As ISAN is pushing to get a law in place, we must look at what we need to get there," he said.
The Nigerian Shippers Council said at the summit that ISAN would need to send a powerful delegate to the president through the minister of transport for the government to know how important maritime transport is in the local content bill.
It also announced the incubation of maritime development bank, adding that the association was in position to collaborate with Maritime Organisation Of West and Central Africa to raise the necessary capital for maritime development.
Another Senior Advocate who also took on the guest speaker on the need for local content law said there was need for the law to be put in place, adding that his colleagues took the position because previous maritime laws that had been put in place have not been properly implemented.
The Nigeria Chambers of Shipping also made a similar call at the National Assembly recently during a public hearing on the local content bill when it said Nigerians and their foreign counterparts should be allowed to lift the Nigerian wet cargoes at 60:40 per cent respectively.
The Director-General of the chamber, Mrs. Ify Anazonwu-Akerele, said then that bunkering services should be offered the two groups at 60:40 per cent ratio respectively while domestic cargo clearing should be shared at 75 and 25 per cent respectively. She said maritime insurance services should be provided at equal ratio of 50 per cent each while 75 per cent of ship chandelling services should be provided by Nigerians while the remaining 25 per cent of the services be reserved for foreigners.
Maritime logistics, she said should mostly be offered by Nigerians as she reserved only 30 per cent of the service to the foreigners whom she said should also provide 50 per cent of the nation's marine consulting services.
The chamber, which supported its submissions with the benefits that could be associated with a bill tailored towards the indigenisation of services in the oil and gas sector said "greater indigenous participation in the production of exports and import shipping services inclusively will substantially improve foreign exchange savings if locally produced can be substituted for imported shipping. It will expand employment opportunities within the economy.

Source: The Guardian