…As Capt. Olopoenia emphasizes need for adequacy of training
The Chairman of the STARZS Investment Group and Nigeria’s foremost shipping mogul, Engr. Greg Utomwen Ogbeifun has officially come out of retirement, over President Bola Tinubu’s creation of the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy.
Engr. Ogbeifun who revealed this Thursday in Lagos, stressing that he had vigorously campaigned for establishing this unique Ministry in 2011, also called for establishing a Maritime Bank.
He noted that when he flew the idea, some people had thought it impossible; hence his decision to truncate his cherished retirement, in a selfless determination, to see how opportunities arising out of the government gesture can be leveraged, to create a beacon of light and hope for the upcoming youths, many of which are presently unemployed and underemployed.
Capt. Ade Olopoenia
He enjoined the core stakeholders to synergize, stressing that with the creation of the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, industry movers must synergize to create new opportunities and foreclose failure, in the overall interest of the country’s future.
He called for the establishment of a functional Maritime Bank, capable of providing soft loans, stressing that the industry is capital intensive; and the youths to be attracted in must have to start somewhere.
“There should be an establishment of a Nigerian Maritime bank to provide long-term loans with lower interest rates for the maritime industry. This will enable Nigerian vessel owners access cheap funds for vessel acquisition making it easier to compete with their international counterparts”, Engr. Ogbeifun stated, advising on the need to restructure Nigeria’s ship registry into an open register, instead of the current closed register to attract international tonnage.
The Shipping guru frowned on Nigeria’s policy uncertainty, noting that this has undermined the growth in global maritime trade.
“Government should consider engaging seasoned maritime technocrats during their policy-making and reviews on global shipping matters.
“We should learn from the mistakes of the past and allow the private sector to drive the development of a Nigerian fleet where the vessels are owned and operated by private sector players but duly registered in Nigeria.
“All Nigerian fleet that meets international shipping standards should automatically be granted the National Fleet status which enables them to have first right of refusal for all Federal, State, and Local Governments cargoes.
“The resultant benefit of implementing these recommendations include promotion of import and export trade, attracting foreign direct investments, reduction of foreign exchange capital flight, increased employment opportunities, provision of training platforms for Nigerian seafarers, the growth of the national GDP and ultimately, positioning Nigeria as a competitive player in the global shipping industry”, Ogbeifun indicated further, before venturing on the issue of government’s tax discrimination policy.
“Government tax policies should not discriminate against indigenous owners in the area of Duty, Temporary Importation (T.I), VAT, etc.
“Thus, the government should benchmark other foreign shipping countries by enabling the maritime private sectors to have access to automatic zero duty, 5-year tax holiday, reduced VAT and reduced Tonnage Tax. These will encourage investment in the acquisition of ships for global trade which will expand the Nigerian fleet”, Engr. Greg Utomwen Ogbeifun further counselled.
Speaking in the same vein, a Chieftain of the Nigerian Association of Master Mariners, Capt. Ade Olopoenia spoke on the need for standardisation of policies, to enable the maritime industry to grow realistically and comprehensively.
“There is presently, no structured, maritime policy in place. What we currently have is the application of initiatives. A new Minister comes, and he brings in his initiative. A new Director General comes, he brings in his initiative; whereas, what we need is a functional, Maritime Transport policy “, Capt. Olopoenia highlighted, pointing out, that there is a pronounced inadequacy of training arrangements on ground.
Calling attention to the prescription of the Manilla principle, which recommended proper training, Olopoenia stressed the need to entrench a viable training system on ground.
“We need to be able to train our people, properly, adequately”, Capt. Olopoenia concluded.
