The Nigeria Ship-owners Association, NISA, plans to float $500 million (about N207 billion) in the first quarter of 2022 in a bid to combat the dominance of the shipping business in Nigeria by foreigners.
NISA member, Mr Ayorinde Adedoyin, said the association is close to collecting the necessary funds for the move.
“We have been working on a fund called the Nigerian Maritime Fund, NMF. What we are trying to do is to pull funds together, about $500 million, and I think we are almost there and what the fund will do is that with the fund we can acquire assets for operations,” Mr Adedoyin said.
“It is not only vessels; we can acquire axillaries of the shipping industry and own it. It is not all about the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund, CVFF; we hope and pray that by early next year the NMF will have come to fruition.”
Corroborating his views, the managing director of Panafric Ocena and Energy, Mr Tunji Brown, said they have been preparing tools to ensure genuine ship owners and not foreign fronts are brought back.
d”Where we are today is a function of government neglect because they are the regulators of this sector but we believe that they should be part of this association to develop the shipping industry with us but every effort we made in the past hit a brick wall because of personal interests,” Mr Brown added
