Why Cabotage Act Failed — Nweke

The president of National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Mr. Eugene Nweke has highlighted why the Cabotage Act failed in Nigeria.

He stated that the Cabotage Act was imported from America, and that it was structured to empower American indigenes.

According to him, it was also put in place in Nigeria to empower and encourage Nigerian ship owners and operators to participate in the coastal trade.

However, he said it has been difficult to put the Cabotage Act in proper shape in Nigeria because the developed nations are dominating the economic of the developing countries.

According to him, the agitation for Foreign Barren Investment whereby the developing nations would relinquish their local content requirements, export requirements and their foreign exchange handling requirements would not allow the Cabotage Act to work.

He stated that the (BIT) Bilateral Investment Trade (BIT) which is subject to removal of deregulating power and trade related investment measure agreement are measures targeted to make the Cabotage Act unworkable.

He suggested that a law be put in place to protect the people in the Maritime industry, saying that is the beauty of democracy.

”As a nation, we must learn to do things step-by- step and to learn from those who have comparative advantage over us, by way of merging to learn”, he stated.

According to him, if need be, we might start all over again as was the case in India adding that government must invest in infrastructure capacity building in order to move the country forward as a maritime nation.

On security, he challenged the government to explain why the Nigeria Navy, Marine Police and the Nigeria Air Force are not adequately funded, for them to perform their statutory functions like their counterparts in the advanced countries despite the huge amount on defence in the government yearly budget.

He recommended that a coastal guard department be carved out of  NIMASA so as to help in monitoring and checking sea privacy, robberies and oil bunkering on the nation’s high seas.

Nweke wondered why Nigeria, a maritime nation cannot boast of a national ship, ship building and ship repairing yards.

He appealed to the government to work assiduously for the steel mills in the country as it would help to boost the Maritime industry.

—Moses Falobi