23rd September, 2011
Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) is to benefit six indigenous companies, whose names have been forwarded to the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA). The companies are those that will be the first set of beneficiaries of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) after emerging from the screening of proposals submitted to the four primary lending institutions (PLIs).
Acquisition of ships is capital intensive. It rarely is the case that an individual will dip hands into his pocket or go to his bank account and withdraw money to buy a ship. It is very expensive. A lot of financing is, therefore, needed to encourage Nigerians to buy ships. The Federal Government had, in the past, created various intervention funds to aid the acquisition of ships by Nigerians.
These intervention funds were necessary since Nigerian banks had been incapable of providing effective financing, while those banks that were able to do so had been reluctant because of perceived notion that such loan facilities might be difficult to recover as most vessels owned by Nigerians are idle on the seas. In the 1980s and 1990s, government, through the defunct National Maritime Authority (NMA), created the Ship Acquisition and Ship Building Fund (SASBF).While a few number of genuine ship owners benefited from the SASBF and bought ships, several politicians, briefcase ship owners and cronies of the then military junta also dipped their hands into the fund and diverted the money.