Nigeria’s strict tax system triggers brain drain in seafaring

Nigeria is losing its seafarers to foreign employers due to a stringent working environment, such as the deduction of taxes and pensions in dollars.

This was disclosed, yesterday, by the NLNG Ship Management Limited (NSML), at the yearly conference of the Shipping Correspondents Association of Nigeria (SCAN).

The Fleet Manager, NLNG Ship Management Limited (NSML), Hambal Yusuf, in a panel session, decried that only Nigerian Seafarers pay tax and have their pensions deducted in dollars.

He said this has made most seafarers stop working for companies in Nigeria and move abroad to foreign companies worsening the dearth of qualified officers in the country.

He said training a seafarer to international standards is expensive with the company paying as much as $100, 000 before they can go onboard flag state vessels.

Yusuf said NSML sends seafarers to the United Kingdom to train to meet international standards, noting that after spending so much on their training, the stringent tax and pension force them to leave the country for foreign companies which give them waivers and pay better.

He said India gives tax and pension waivers to local indigene seafarers, especially when they spend about eight months outside the country onboard the sea, unlike Nigeria, which spends 13 months and still has 30 per cent of salaries withdrawn in dollars.

“The Indians have conditions. If you are an Indian seafarer and you are out of the country for more than eight months, you don’t pay tax in a year and you see an Indian seafarer asking for an extension of stay for days so they meet that requirement. But in Nigeria, if the seafarer goes out for 13 months, they will pay tax and it is graded depending on what they are earning. This is why our seafarers are going to work for foreign companies. As a seafarer, I paid that tax for over 16 years,” he said.

The Manager, Training and Maritime Centre of Excellence (MCOE), Nigeria LNG Ship Management Limited, Dr. Effiong Ekanem-Attah, stressed the need for government to fund the training of cadets and upgrade the maritime academy to achieve international accreditation of the certificates as in the case of Ghana.

Recall that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency of the United Kingdom in January approved the Certificate of Competency (CoC) issued to seafarers by the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA), even as the agency has continued to reject the CoC issued by Nigeria.

He said because the country’s maritime academy certificate is not acceptable, forcing companies to spend $100, 000 to train a seafarer in the UK.

Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, NLNG Ship Management Limited (NSML), Abdulkadir Ahmed, said the diminishing attraction of sea careers coupled with “rising man-berth ratios” and continued fleet growth are likely to result in the more shortfall of officers in the future.

He said the increased digitalisation and automation of the shipping industry will require different and more technically advanced knowledge and expertise than what is currently obtained.

He said these technological developments will radically change the employment patterns -in the maritime industry- in the coming years; and similarly, the required skillsets, and training needs required in the immediate, near term and long term will be significantly different from the skills.