THREE months after assurances from the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy during a stakeholders meeting held in Lagos, fish trawlers, under the aegis of the Nigerian Trawlers Owners Association (NITOA) have cried out over declining fortunes of their business in the country.
They stated that due to increasing high operating cost, many operators have abandoned their fishing vessels.
Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune exclusively, President of NITOA, Mrs Ben Okonkwo, said: “We had about 250 boats when the association came under a unified body in 1986. And we had over 100 thousand workers across board, direct and indirect.
“At a time, the business fortunes of these companies nosedived due to difficulties in assessing forex for foreign transactions and procurement of it too. The atmosphere is no longer favourable, thus forcing many investors to either divert their funds to other ventures, or park up finally.
“At the moment, there are eight-member companies with about 156 vessels of both big and medium sizes. The workforce now is 10,000, including auxiliary staff.
“NITOA member companies are not averse to any policy direction that will grow the fisheries industry. We are still hopeful for an intervention from the relevant agencies of government three months after our meeting with the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy in Lagos.”
She added that the first among the challenges faced by members is getting AGO to power their vessels.
“AGO is about more than 70 percent of input into our operations. This cost of operation has no alternative because there is no option to AGO for our kind of operations. We cannot talk about renewable energy; it is not a sure operation. So, AGO is something we can’t do without. It costs 30 to 40 million in the past to embark on a normal voyage. Now we are using 100 million to 140 million depending on sea days in naira. The cost has gone so high, I don’t have adjectives to qualify it. We are becoming scared by the day of what the future maybe if this subsector goes under.
“We need support from the government. Any reduction in price with the help of government for this subsector will go a long way. Because of AGO, 40 to 45 percent of our vessels are down. The jetties all have vessels tied down. When we tie down vessels, there is an extent we can go in paying our staff. It will get to a stage if they are not productive, we have to let them go and you know what that entails in terms of unemployment. If we can get some logistics arrangement through NNPC and Dangote, it will go a long way,” she noted.
She also called for duty waivers on most of the component parts of the vessel imported since they don’t have manufacturing plants for such parts in the country.
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