Steve Agbota
With a coastline of 852 kilometres bordering the Atlantic Ocean in the Gulf of Guinea and a maritime area of over 46,000 km2, Nigeria is no doubt a huge maritime destination.
Despite the nation’s seaports handles more than 85 per cent of import trade value at over $15 billion annually, its maritime industry is still being neglected and facing numerous challenges ranging from maritime crimes and insecurity, infrastructure deficit at the seaports and among others.
Asides all these, it is also worrisome that maritime sector is not captured in the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), because one cannot pin point what the industry contributes to the GDP due to the fact that 80 to 90 per cent of vessels that come into the country are foreign vessels.
The rationale behind this is that, the foreign vessels owners’ repatriate the profit accruing from the shipping business in Nigeria to their various countries thereby making it difficult for Nigeria to retain much in the economy.
Around the world, maritime activities are crucial and play a key role in the alleviation of poverty and creating wealth because the sector constitutes an important source of income and employment for many people in maritime nations, which include Nigeria, in the form of supply of seagoing personnel, labour for ship recycling, ship owning and operating, ship building and repairs, as well as port services.
In developed countries, all sectors of the economy such as agriculture, oil and gas, manufacturing, banking, construction, printing among others are virtually depending on maritime sector to thrive because most of the equipments that all these sectors mentioned are using on a daily basis are coming through the seaports. This is why maritime transport is essential to the world’s economy as over 90 per cent of the world’s trade is carried by sea and it is, by far, the most effective way to move huge volumes of goods and raw materials around the world.
Despite Nigeria generating over N10 billion in the maritime industry daily, it is saddened that the huge potential in the sector remains untapped and neglected.
Daily Sun learnt that if serious attention is given to maritime industry in the country, money accruing from maritime trade alone can service the nation’s annual budget successfully, while Nigeria would see other revenue coming from other sectors as an added advantage to grow the nation’s economy.
Speaking at a book presentation recently, titled: “Footprints Of President Muhammadu Buhari In The Maritime Sector,” written by the Shipping Correspondents Association of Nigeria (SCAN), Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala-Usman, who was represented by the Executive Director, Marine and Operation, Dr Sekonte Davies, said the nation’s maritime sector was a major contributor to the economy.
According to her, “this is more so when we consider that the oil and gas sector, which is the country’s economic mainstay, is itself almost completely dependent on the maritime sector.”
She said that Nigerian ports are a major gateway into the country with over 85 per cent of all the goods and services coming into the country exploiting facilities at the nation’s seaports with aggregate value exceeding the $15billion mark annually.
She added: “Because the maritime industry is an intensely competitive one wherein stakeholders have the liberty of choice and the discretion to review those choices as often as they will, ports desiring any level of market share must be open in their practices and engender confidence, retain old patronage and gain more trust with the intent of increasing market share. This is more so for us in Nigeria where, as we said earlier the maritime sector is a significant contributor to national growth with yet untapped potentials to do more.”
He noted that in most countries, developed and developing ones alike, incomes from maritime operations represent an enormous revenue line, the sort of which funds significant capital projects and social security systems.
He explained: “Singapore’s maritime industry, as an example, contributes about 7 per cent to the country’s $300 billion Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This administration understood that Nigerian must aspire for as much and even greater and a lot of this has to do with how much of integrity we are able to bring into our practices.
“So, one of the greatest things this administration has achieved is in the area of transparency. From the Nigerian Ports Authority where we decided to open our budget to the public with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with BUDGIT Open Budget System Platform, to the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), which launched a massive rebranding strategy to rebuild confidence and the Nigerian Customs Service that has posted unprecedented revenue returns in the course of the past three and a half years. This administration has been deliberate about entrenching a culture of transparency and giving all stakeholders a sense of trust in the system, which did not exist before 2015.”
Meanwhile also speaking at the book presentation, Chairman, Board of Trustees, SCAN, Bolaji Akinola, said the book was put together by the association to acknowledge the commitment of government to the betterment of the maritime industry, and to serve as a source/reference document for future generations.
He said it is also on record that the huge infrastructural deficit facing the sector is being addressed by the present government. He added that the lack of scanners in the ports, severely dilapidated port access roads, lack of rail evacuation of cargo from the port as well as dysfunctional inland container depots, from “our perspectives as reporters, are issues the present government has decided to tackle headlong”.
Akinola said the group has also written series of reports on the efforts of government to address several other inherited challenges, including the poor state of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron; lack of seatime experience for Nigerian cadets; lack of access to finance by indigenous ship owners; safety and security on Nigerian waterways, among others.