To end Nigeria’s war insurance status by foreign shipping companies, Nigeria should establish a shipping company that will be the national carrier.
The President and Chairman of Council, the Chartered Institute of Transport Administration in Nigeria (CIOTA) Dr. Bashir Jamoh gave the indication in Abuja at the third National Transport Summit held in Abuja. Dr. Jamoh also double as the NIMASA Director-General.
He said the national carrier will provide alternative shipping options for Nigerian importers and exporters thus would force the freight and insurance cost to moderate.
He noted further that if Nigeria has a national shipping line or national carrier, she won’t bother foreign shippers “to remove war risk insurance on our freights.”
But if we have the national carrier, to some extent we can determine the cost of freight and the supply side from the national carrier will give us an edge because of the law of demand and supply he further explained.
He said this is because if the foreign Shippers insist on war risk insurance, the national carrier will carry Nigerian cargo on reasonable rates.
Our Correspondent reports that foreign shipping firms demand war risk insurance from Nigeria importers because they consider shipping to Nigeria a high-risk, akin to a war situation, due to insecurity.
The CIOTA President noted that since the launch of the Deep Blue Sea Project on Nigeria Maritime domain, the security situation has improved.
“When I came onward, the major problem we experienced at that time is maritime security. We tried to concentrate more on the maritime security. We have greatly improved that. The third quarter report of the International Maritime Bureau signifies we made a huge progress in terms of maritime sector. We are yet to get there but we will get there” he assured.
He however noted that in spite the successes CIOTA will still Conduct a research on Nigerian Maritime security architecture to identify gaps that needed to be closed.
“Even in maritime security, you will take stock of the infrastructure you have and what you need to do to bridge any existing gap.”
He also said the same kinds of researches will be conducted by CIOTA in other modes of transportation.
The Chairman of the event and the Vice President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Prof, Yemi Osinbajo said
the theme and the sub theme is of the summit are in tune with government thinking and actions.
Represented by the Minsuter of Transportaion, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, the VP said this is “can be seen in the massive transport infrastructure development in the rail , road maritime and air sub sectors as an indication of the seriousness with which this government takes transportation as sector for driving our economic agenda we enunciated some creative policy initiatives for funding critical projects in the sector.” He said “these include road infrastructure tax credit scheme, bonds , involvement of international development partners such as world bank , Africa development bank, IMF , foreign direct investment high way development and management initiatives and national tolling policy.
