Lagos — In a bid to commence the disbursements of the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund CVFF, in the next few weeks, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, has said that it raised the numbers of Primary Lending Institutions, appointed to midwife the disbursements of Fund from the initial four to 12.
Disclosing this to Newsmen in Lagos Wednesday, during the oversight visit of the House of Representative Committee on Safety Education and Administration, Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Dayo Mobereola said that the process for the disbursements of the Fund has begun adding the number of PLIs has also been expanded to accommodate more financial institutions for ease of administrating the Fund.
Mobereola also disclosed that the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy has approved streamlined the guidelines regulating the application and disbursement of the Fund.
He said: ” What we have done is to streamline the guidelines and the guidelines that has been approved by the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy is to ensure that it takes nothing less than three to months to access the Fund.
“What is most important about it is that we also making use of the Banks so that it will not be totally a NIMADA project.
“The Banks are going to carry the initial risk assessment to ensure that who is going to access this Fund has the capacity in terms of his own capacity. And then the bank is going to lend 35 percent as well.
“And then NIMASA is going to lend the other 50 percent. So, when that risk is being taken on by the bank, you’ll be rest assured that whoever is coming to us is a bonafide shipping company, bonafide company who has capacity to trade and who has the capacity to also repay back because it’s a revolving fund. So it’s all of those.
“The strength that we do not have, we have handed it over to the bank to help us to manage that side of it. And by so going, it will find out that this thing, once we start it before the end of this year, by God’s grace, it will be revolving, and it will be just continuous over the years.
“Sir, during the internal of your predecessor, they engaged about five PLIs, maybe four or five.
“But the process was stalled because of the issue of interest rate. When NIMASA wanted single digit rates, they were asking for higher. Now, are you retaining those PLIs or you are getting others? We have expanded the PLIs.
“From four to 12, including the former ones, we re-advertised and the former ones also applied. So, we are now 12.
“And the fact remains that we are still insisting that we want single digits interest rates because we want our shipping companies, our vessels to be able to compete with international shipping companies.
“And we need patient capital, meaning that when a loan is given, the loan is given for about 15 years, 20 years, that you don’t have to be under pressure to pay back immediately.
“And then the interest rate will throw you out of the market. So that is one side of it. The other part of it that we are also working on is to ensure that there is cargo for them to carry.
“And we are working with the cargo generators, the NNPCs, the NLNGs, the exporters, to make sure they patronise Nigerian vessels that will be available at that time. So it’s a win-win. And the association of the ship owners are on board with us.
“So we have a long way to go, but we are starting well.”
