Nigerian freight industry loses $9bn a year because no shipping line is locally owned

NIGERIA is said to be losing about $9bn a year to foreign ship-owners because the country has no single vessel that is involved in international freight services according to recent data revealed by the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC).

According to the NSC, Nigeria makes nothing from the billions of dollars spent by importers and exporters as freight fees to owners of vessels, as no Nigerian or Nigerian firm has a ship that moves cargo internationally. NSC executive secretary, Hassan Bello, who disclosed this at a one-day seminar in Abuja, however, noted that the government was working hard to allow Nigerian firms own vessels in order to benefit from the revenue generated from global freight services.

Mr Bello said: “In 2015 alone, Nigeria spent $9bn on freight and not a single ship is owned by a Nigerian or Nigerian firm. Meaning that this huge revenue went to foreign vessel owners and this development may have lingered.

“However, with the support of the government in diversifying the economy, we have been engaging stakeholders in order to do something about this. So we are targeting that in about three years’ time, Nigerians will own and operate vessels and benefit from the revenue there.”

He noted that a committee that was charged with the mandate of actualising the establishment of a national shipping line had been inaugurated by the government, as he explained that with no Nigerian vessel to share in the movement of cargo on the high sea, Nigeria had continued to suffer massive capital flight.

According to Mr Bello, about 5m jobs could be created in the industry if the estimated $9bn that has been going to foreign ship-owners was invested in the sector. He said the federal government’s move to establish a national shipping firm would be in partnership with the private sector.

On the movement of cargo from the Lagos ports to the Kaduna Inland Dry Port, Mr Bello stated that trains had been moving goods from Lagos State to the facility in Kaduna and back. He added that by next week, the NSC would commence the search for investors who would invest in the construction of Truck Transit Parks in Enugu and Kogi states.