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Expert in the Maritime sector have said, Nigeria is losing a sum of $9.2bn annually to foreign shipping lines that are handling cargo.
A former Chairman of the National Fleet Implementation Committee, Hassan Bello, made this disclosure at inauguration of the new executives of the Shipowners Association of Nigeria in Lagos.
According to him,“$9.2bn lost annually to foreigners. This is trade that goes to foreign-owned shipping companies or carriers. You could imagine what that could do to our economy if we had a national fleet. The national fleet should be an initiative of the private sector but the government should encourage it,” Bello said.
Bello, a former executive secretary of the Nigerian Shippers Council, stated that all the earnings that were supposed to come into Nigeria now go to foreigners, creating employment for them.
The former executive secretary of the Nigerian Shippers Council lamented that Nigeria operated a monoeconomy, wholly dependent on the export of a single commodity, which is crude oil.
“We have to own and operate indigenous tonnage, purely private sector driven by providing incentives that are the function of a government, friendly operating climate, like tax holidays, and a wide range of very important incentives, which other countries have used. We have no time to do that. We are talking about tax holidays. We are talking about fiscal policies, legal, and the policy changes,” he stated.
