Headlines

Ameachi blames indigenous ship owners over Nigeria’s inability to own national shipping line

Rotimi Amaechi, Minister of Transportation

Eyewitness reporter

The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has said that the inability of indigenous ship owners to raise 60 per cent equity shares in the proposed joint venture national shipping company was responsible for the failure of the proposed national carrier to take off.

Nigeria, in 2016, has proposed the establishment of a national shipping line in a joint venture arrangement that will replace the collapsed Nigeria National Shipping Line(NNSL) in the 90s.

Towards this end, the Federal Government signed a Joint Venture (JV) partnership with Pacific International Line( PIL), a Singaporean consortium, on shareholding of 60:40 for the establishment of national carrier.

The 60 percent equity share was to be held by a group of indigenous shipping firms while the remaining 40 percent shares go to the foreign firm.

However, six years after, the proposed joint venture business has gone awary as the foreign investors have since pulled out.

Amaechi revealed that the failure of the Nigerian investors to raise their own 60 equity shares led to the collapse of the agreement and the disengagement of the foreign investors.

“Unless Nigerians provide 60 percent of the investment as required by law, establishing a national shipping line would not be realisable”, Ameachi declared at the weekend in Benin, Edo state during the thanksgiving service to mark the 71st birthday celebration of the Chairman , Starzs Investment Company Ltd, Engr. Gregory Utomwen Ogbeifun.

The minister further revealed that the law requires that 60 percent of the funding be provided by Nigerians while the remaining 40 percent be contributed by the Singaporian consurtium .

He said the plan has become practically impossible due to the unwillingness of major players in the maritime industry to raise such amount.

He said though a foreign firm had assured of providing 100 percent of the money required for setting up the shipping line, Ameachi said he would not grant such approval as doing so would amount to flouting the law.

” For not having a national shipping line, some stakeholders in the maritime sector think that I may not have done well. The law setting up a national shipping line says that Nigerians would provide 60 percent of the investment and foreigners will provide 4o percent”

“So, I went to Singapore, got a company that accepted to bring the forty percent but unfortunately, till today, no Nigerian has been able to provide the remaining sixty percent. The company had said to me that they would bring all the 100 percent and hire some Nigerians as stakeholders, but I disagreed because that would amount to breaking the law”.

“There is also a company in Dubai that said they would set up the national shipping line by providing the 100 percent but I have told them that the law only allows them (foreigners) to provide 40 percent.”.

“Unless we amend the law to enable us allow foreigners to own 60 percent of the investment and employ Nigerians, but as the law is today, there is no way a foreigner can have 100 percent.

“As a minister, my job is not to bring the money but to create an enabling environment for business to thrive”, Amaechi explained.

Related Topics:featured Why National Carrier project

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I was never in charge of maritime industry —Saraki

Senator Gbemisola Saraki, Minister of State for Transportation in a hearty discussion with Amaechi when the going was good

Eyewitness reporter

For three years after she was named the Minister of State for Transportation in 2019, Senator Gbemisola Saraki said she was never in charge of the maritime sector.

Her assertion contradicted the gentleman’s agreement between her and Rotimi Amaechi, who until his resignation from Mohammed Buhari’s cabinet to pursue his failed presidential ambition, was the Minister of transportation.

Amaechi, as the then supervising Minister, in 2019, had delineated the duties of the two heads of the ministry to avoid any possible clash of interests.

At one of the public functions held in Lagos in 2019 at the beginning of his second term in office as the Minister of Transportation, Amaechi publicly declared that while he would focus his attention on railways due to the enormity of the project and its importance to the national economy, Saraki will be in charge of the maritime industry with his occasional supervision, especially as it concerns maritime security.

Ameachi had then acknowledged that he had abandoned the maritime industry for the rail sector when he first served as transportation minister from 2015 to 2019 but said his minister of state, Senator Gbemisola Saraki, will fill the gap during his second term in office.

“In my first term as minister, I completely abandoned the maritime sector to the heads of agencies.

“This time around, that won’t be happening again as I have instructed that the Hon. Minister of Transportation for State should personally supervise the maritime agencies, while I just oversee what is happening” Ameachi had declared.

However, Senator Saraki subtly debunked the claim three years after when she said that she was never in charge of the sector.

The minister was reacting to an inquiry from the curious journalists last week Friday why it took her one year to the end of her four-year tenure to come on a familiarisation tour of the sector she was supposed to be superintending.

“I was never in charge of the maritime sector. I was asked to supervise road transport” the Kwara State-born politician declared.

Her revelation confirmed the widely held belief among the stakeholders that there was a repressed and smouldering animosity between the two Ministers.

Though Saraki tried to downplay the cat and mouse relationship with her former boss, stakeholders however believed that the two Ministers never got along well with each other.

Sources pointed to instances when the two Ministers were tactically avoiding joint attendance at maritime events.

Impeccable sources whispered to our reporter that the festering feud became noticeable when Saraki began to boycott events in the industry with her former boss.

It was further learnt that the boycott of events in the industry by the Minister of state may be a subtle protest against the apparent arrogation by Amaechi of official duties of the junior Minister which has led to the redundancy of Saraki.

It was gathered that throughout 2019 and the better part of 2021, Amaechi allowed Saraki to take charge of events in the maritime industry.

Sources claimed that towards the end of last year and since the beginning of 2022 up till his resignation as the Minister, Amaechi may have reneged on the gentleman’s agreement between him and his minister of state.

“During this period, the Minister took over the functions hitherto reserved for the Minister of state.

”This development seems to have irked Saraki who felt the Minister was trying to make her reductant.

“That was when she started to boycott functions at the maritime industry where she and her principal were likely to meet” a source who was in the know confided in our reporter.The absence of the minister of State at major maritime events became noticeable during landmark events such as NIMASA’s unveiling of wreck removal in 2021, the World Maritime Day, 2021, and the inspection of the Lekki deep seaport by President Muhammadu Buhari.

It could also be recalled that Amaechi had made a couple of visits to the Lekki deep seaport, even on a Sunday, before the presidential visit, none of which Saraki attended.

Concerned maritime stakeholders claimed that the recent action of Ameachi, who is widely regarded as the ”Lion of the Niger Delta” may appear bossy to Gbemisola Saraki, who is also a strong-willed woman.

“The two Ministers are of strong-willed personalities who don’t brood nonsense.

“We all know the political antecedents of Amaechi who has a domineering posture.
“
” Gbemi is also made of sterner stuff given her role in the “Otoge” political tsunami in Kwara which eventually swept off Bukola Saraki, her blood brother, from the political dominance in Kwara politics, a role which earned her the present position in the present dispensation.

“So, I don’t see how Amaechi, who has domineering posture could lord it over Gbemi, who is equally a woman of strong character, without skirmishes” a knowledgeable analyst declared.

However, stakeholders were skeptical if Senator Saraki could achieve much of the promises she made during her week-long tours of Lagos ports last week given barely one year she has as a member of the Buhari Administration before it is wound up.

The Minister came on the tour in the company of some Directors in the ministry.

“Today is my fifth week of assuming the leadership of the Ministry of Transportation”, she declared last week Friday in Lagos.

“We came to take stock of the sector. We had taken the stock of the Road sector,” she said.

Giving her summation of her findings at the end of the tour, she declared” Apapa and Tin Can ports are in terrible need of repairs.

“We will go and come back for repairs.

“We have the short, medium, and long-term plans for this. We need to start with rehabilitation here. Another problem here is power”

The Minister met various groups who are stakeholders in the industry.

Among them are women groups in maritime, terminal operators, stevedores, maritime workers union groups, haulage, and transport operators, maritime lawyers, freight forwarders, and maritime press.

Headlines

We have political will to ensure CVFF is disbursed—-Saraki

Senator Gbemosola Saraki, Minister of State for Transportation

—- expresses sadness over unending delay

Eyewitness reporter

The Minister of State for Transportation, Senator Rukayyat Gbemisola Saraki has expressed willingness to muster the necessary political will to ensure the controversial Cabotage Vessels Financing Funds (CVFF) are disbursed before she leaves office.

She expressed sadness over the delay in the disbursement of the interventionist funds, 19 years after it was set up which she said was critical to the empowerment of the struggling indigenous ship owners.

The Minister made this commitment Friday during the interactive media parley she held in Lagos to round up her week-long tours of Lagos ports.

The Minister, who was fielding questions from journalists, declared that her ministry would work with the National Assembly to expedite action of the disbursement process.

She disclosed that she was part of the senators who passed the Cabotage Act in 2003 which gave birth to the CVFF and it was disheartening that 19 years later the funds are yet to be disbursed.

“It is really very disheartening that the fund has not been disbursed but we will work with the National Assembly to ensure its disbursement.

“Just watch, it has to be disbursed, especially with the coming on stream of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

“In the course of this visit, I have also interacted with so many stakeholders, including the indigenous ship owners.

“I know the number of vessels that Nigerians had 10 years ago and I know how many they have now.

“The funds is very critical for the empowerment of indigenous ship owners and we know many of them have gone under”

“It is really a shame that this fund has not been disbursed, I learnt the value is $350 million now and I am not sure any part of it is missing.

” We will work with the National Assembly to pass the guidelines. It is not really about the Federal Ministry of Finance but I think it is more of the political will to disburse it and I think we have the political will to do so.”

The Minister disclosed that the guidelines for the disbursement of the fund have been formulated and awaiting the approval of the National Assembly.

She added that the disbursement would follow the approval by the National Assembly after beneficiaries must have been shortlisted.

According to her, the approval would soon be secured and the fund disbursed in no distant time.

She regarded the non-disbursement of the CVFF as a national shame and embarrassment.

CVFF is a two percent contribution by indigenous ship owners on every Cabotage contract executed and is meant for fleet expansion and empowerment of the shipping capacity of indigenous ship owners.

Since 2003 when the Cabotage Act was enacted and 2006 when the CVFF guidelines were enacted, no disbursement was made as the funds have become a subject of controversy and subject to serial abuse.

Headlines

P&ID fraud : Court convicts, winds up Marqott Nigeria Limited.

Owolola Adebola

Justice D.U Okorowo of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has convicted and wound up Marqott Nigeria Limited, one of the 30 companies associated with the Process and Industrial Development Limited, P & ID, for money laundering.

The company was convicted on Thursday, June 16, 2022, after being found guilty of four-count charges bordering on money laundering preferred against it by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

Count one of the charges read: “That you, Marqott Nigeria Limited, being a designated Non-financial Institution; and Giovanni Beccarelli, Valentina Fantoli, and Dimitri Duca, being directors of and signatories to the bank account of Marqott Nigeria Limited, sometime in September 2014, in Abuja, within the Abuja Judicial Division of the Federal High Court, failed to comply with the requirements of submitting to the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, a declaration of activities of Marqott Nigeria Limited contrary to Section 16(1) (f) read together with Section 5(1)(a)(ii) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011(as amended and you thereby committed an offence punishable under section 16(2)(b) of the same Act.”

Count two read: “That you, Marqott Nigeria Limited, being a designated Non-financial Institution; and Giovanni Beccarelli, Valentina Fantoli, and Dimitri Duca, being directors of and signatories to the bank account of Marqott Nigeria Limited, sometime in September 2014, in Abuja, within the Abuja Judicial Division of the Federal High Court, failed to develop programs to combat money laundering and other illegal acts, to wit: failure to designate at management level a compliance officer within any strata of Marqott Nigeria Limited, contrary to Section 16(1)(f) read together with Section 9(1)(a) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 (as amended) and you thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 16 (2)(b) of the same Act”.

At the point of the first arraignment on February 7, 2022, the defendant pleaded “not guilty” to the charges, setting the stage for a full trial.

In the course of the trial, the EFCC presented many witnesses and tendered many documents as exhibits.

In his judgment, Justice Okorowo found Marqott Nigeria Limited guilty of all the four-count charges and convicted it accordingly. He also ordered that the company be wound up and its entire assets forfeited to the Federal Government of Nigeria.

Marqott was first arraigned on Monday, February 7, 2022, for being an accomplice in the $9.6bn Gas Supply and Processing Agreement between the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and P&ID.