Nigeria has no plan for ship building- President SOAN

                                                  

 Greg Ogbeifun, the President, Ship Owners Association of Nigeria (SOAN) and Managing Director, Starz Investment Company Limited has faulted Nigeria’s Cabotage administration for not having a measurable strategic plan that grows the ship building sector.

Ogbeifun made this submission at the maiden edition of the Maritime Workshop, an event  put together by the Maritime Forum of the Department of Law, University of Lagos.

Delivering a paper titled “Ship Owning and Corporate Governance in Shipping”, he pointed out that although owning “ships built in Nigeria” is one fundamental criterion for participating in coastal trade within the country, there is yet to be a measurable plan that ensures its realisation.

“There’s no strategic plan to grow and measure the growth of the ship building sector in two, three, five or ten years”, Ogbeifun stated.

He listed the lack of a viable steel industry,a thriving power sector and financial institutions with the capacity to offer long term loans as key factors militating against the development of the ship building industry.

He regretted that 10 years after running Cabotage in Nigeria, no shipyard builds ships even though “the idea of introducing ship building in the Cabotage Act was to stimulate growth in the sector .”

The Starzs Investment boss disclosed that an attempt by a French company in Onne, Port Harcourt to run a ship assembling company failed because coupling ships was found to be 40% more expensive than importing the finished product.

Citing the South Africa model of growing the ship building sector where government primarily owns shipyards and leases its facility to interested organizations, Ogbeifun called on the Nigerian government to take a deliberate look at the sector with the aim of adopting strategies that would facilitate its growth.