A new twist has been introduced to why the much talked about disbursement of Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF) has remained a promise not fulfilled by successive administrations.
According to a prominent transport analyst and President, Global Transport Policy, Dr. Segun Musa, the Fund is not there but being utilized by the government as they earn it.
Musa, who was a guest of the Maritime Reporters Association of Nigeria (MARAN) at the association’s Roundtable Discussion on Tuesday, maintained that the CVFF is not being saved as stakeholders are being made to believe, alleging that if there is anything left of the Fund it must be the one recently collected.
He stated that this explains the reason nobody in Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) can come out to boldly give a figure of the amount so far collected.
The transport analyst challenged those in charge of the Fund to come out with the audited account of the Fund.
Musa argued that CVFF is not money meant to be tampered with by the government, saying that it was established for stakeholders to develop indigenous capacity.
He stressed that the Federal Government is only holding the Fund in trust on behalf of stakeholders in the Nigerian shipping community and therefore should not be utilized for any other purpose safe for building indigenous capacity.
Going memory lane, the transport planner pointed out that the Fund was initially dubbed Ship Acquisition and Ship Building Funds (SASBF) and was being disbursed for its purpose but regretted that some stakeholders abused the privilege and diverted the loans collected to other uses aside shipping.
He explained that the mismanagement of the loans given out from the Fund led to its suspension then by the government with a promise to look for a better way of managing it in the future.
He insisted that it’s wrong for the government to dip hands into the Fund, reiterating that it belongs to the shipping community for indigenous capacity building.
