$350M Cabotage Funds: Open Letter To Mr. President By Engr. Eferebo Sylvanus

$350M Cabotage Funds: Open Letter To Mr. President By Engr. Eferebo Sylvanus

While commending your recent directives for utilizing the funds, I urge you to condition the funding on ship owners willing to design and construct their required vessels with Nigerian indigenous companies and existing shipyards in line with the recently adopted and carefully thought-out COREN guidelines for marine Engineering and Naval Architectural practice or its globally accepted equivalents. Indeed, financing Nigerian shipping companies to export this amount of funds to purchase vessels built from foreign shipyards is a short-term solution that may provide little or no benefit to the Nigerian maritime industry in the long run. Instead, the funds should be used to support the development of the local shipbuilding industry, which will create tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs.

Thank you for your attention on this matter.

Yours Sincerely.

Engr. Eferebo I. Sylvanus.
National Vice Chairman.
Nigerian Institution of Marine Engineers and Naval Architects (NIMENA).