A seasoned maritime business operator, Dr. Segun Musa alleges that the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) is in the know that the Federal Government must have tampered with huge sums of money belonging to the Cabotage Vessels Finance Fund (CVFF), hence the agency declines to either audit the fund or disburse it to indigenous shipowners for vessels acquisition and job creation
By Innocent Chukwu
The President Bola Ahmed Tinubu government’s newly created Marine and Blue Economy Ministry has been tagged a fraud that cannot benefit the Nigerian economy. It should have been a department in Ministry of Transportation because the blue economy has been in operation and needed no special ministry. This is the view of a former governorship aspirant in Lagos State, Dr. Segun Musa.
The maritime business operator and expert expressed his views on the nation’s transport sector on Tuesday, September 10, 2024 in an interactive session with members of the Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN. Musa claimed that the Minister for the Marine and Blue Economy Ministry, Adegboyega Oyetola is incapable of pulling any strings on the ministry because he has no specific target to meet.
Speaking on the now controversial Cabotage Vessels Finance Fund (CVFF), Dr. Musa alleged that he was convinced that monies accrued to the Fund may have been spent by the authorities. He stressed that the CVFF is in the custody of the Federal Government via the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), it was intended to assist indigenous shipping business people to acquire vessels for the Cabotage trade in order to create jobs for Nigerians. The CVFF metamorphosed from the Ship Building and Ship Acquisition Fund (SBSAF) which came into being in 2003 after the passage of the Cabotage Bill into an Act at the National Assembly.
Disappointed that on several occasions NIMASA had failed to avail him with the audited account details of the CVFF when he requested same from the agency, Musa said, “If NIMASA has been unable to audit the CVFF, there will always be suspicion. Let NIMASA be transparent to avoid raising suspicion; if NIMASA can come out with the audited account of how much it has collected, what has been spent, what it has disbursed, then we will not suspect them. The CVFF is not a Federal Government’s money, it’s only in the custody of the government through the CBN to be disbursed to the private sector for vessels acquisition.
“Since we began the CVFF, there has been no disbursement, they are only mentioning figures. What is the essence of keeping the money that does not belong to the Federal Government? Disburse it so that you can create jobs. NIMASA should audit the fund and tell the world how much it has collected”.
According to Dr. Musa, the amount currently in CVFF is far less than what NIMASA claimed it has collected, because what may remain in the fund could be what NIMASA collected in the recent times. “The CVFF money had been spent. What they have there is newly collected fund which cannot be as much as the amount they are mentioning. I’ve gone to NIMASA on several occasions to demand the audited account details of the CVFF, but surprisingly they refused to make that available to me”, Dr Musa revealed.
He also alleged that the Federal Government may have used the fund for budget financing. Adding that, “When government is looking for money to finance budget, it can touch any funds without consulting the CBN or NIMASA”.
