Agbakoba Legal hinges shipping growth on policy review, passage of pending bills
As the Federal Government perfect plans to diversify the economy from depending on crude oil revenue, Olisa Agbakoba Legal (OAL), a leading law firm in Nigeria, has called on the National Assembly to review maritime policies and pass into law all pending bills to drive the sector to become alternate revenue source to oil.
According to the law firm, policies such as Cabotage Act, Local Content Act and Nigeria’s Ocean Policy, need to be reviewed to enable Nigerians tap into the inherent opportunities, while bills such as Ports and Harbours Bill, Transport Commission Bill and Maritime Zones Bill, pending in the national assembly need to be passed to help address critical issues militating growth in the sector.
Speaking in Lagos recently, Priscilla Ogwemoh, managing partner of OAL, who believed that there is need to review policies and legal framework to position the country to benefit from the untapped potential in the sector, also said the sector could generate about N7 trillion into the government coffers, if properly harnessed.
“We have made a call for serious reform in our ports, especially in the area of maritime security. Olisa Agbakoba was the vice chairman of the Presidential Committee on Maritime Reform under President Goodluck Jonathan and all the recommendations from the committee are yet to be implemented, and if implemented, the sector would be turned around and a lot of revenue would be generated,” Ogwemoh explained.
Oluwole Akinyeye, head, maritime unit of OAL notes that Nigeria’s maritime is not playing its role in the nation’s economic sphere owing to the fact that the country is over relying on crude oil but the slump in the price of crude has given the country a call to open up other avenues of generating income.
To him, Nigeria has the tendency of being highly prone to pirate attacks and this points to the fact that there is need to secure the nation’s territorial waters to grow its maritime sector. “For instance, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), has the responsibility of securing our waters but their effort is yet to yield good result and one wonders if it has to do with underfunding or lack of trained personnel.”
On why Nigerian maritime sector remains underdeveloped, he pointed out that the national assemblies needed to pass the Nigerian Maritime Security Agency Bill, to enable NIMASA perform its function. “The issue of pending bills such as Ports and Harbour Bill, Transport Commission Bill etc, formulated to address certain critical issues in the sector needs to be addressed and as far as those bills remained un-passed, the industry will remain unattractive.”
Akinyeye, who said that there was also need to develop a National Shipping Policy that would bring the entire factors highlighted into place, proffer solutions and address the issues, also noted that OLA has put mechanism in place to address the issues through conferences, training and workshop.
Also, he said the issue of policy coordination where agencies in the maritime sector play conflicting roles bringing confusion, multiplicity of policy, operational guidelines, taxation etc, needs to be addressed. “This leads to ostensibly poor coordination of maritime affairs leading, which in it will constitute a constraint for any supervising minister.”
“We need to look at how to maximise the income generated for the government by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS). In some cases, cargo owners import about five containers and declare only one meaning there is loss of revenue for the government. This is the time to look into the sanction in place for such guilty cargo owners,” he explained.
UZOAMAKA ANAGOR-Ewuzie