‘Poor funding pushes 95% indigenous ship chandlers out of business’

About 95 per cent of Nigerian ship chandlers are no longer in the business due to financial burden and lack of support from the government to compete with foreigners.

This is just as Nigeria had lost $70 billion to foreign ship chandlers in the last 16 years, an equivalent of $4.375 billion yearly loss.

Also, over 5,000 direct employment and 20,000 indirect employment were lost within this period to the dominance of foreigners due to the inability of the Federal Government to design a policy that will favour local operators.

A former ship chandler, Felix Anaye-Benson, said 95 per cent of chandlers are no longer in the business due to financial burden and lack of support from the government.

He said most chandlers who were chased out of the industry by their foreign counterparts are now into clearing and forwarding, farming and other businesses to survive.

“In the previous years, ship chandling was one of the wings in the maritime sector that generated foreign exchange into the government’s coffers because everything we do has to revolve around dollars. Today, the dollars are being taken back to foreign countries.

“The foreign counterparts have more financial muscle to send us out of business because they are being supported by their government. And shipping companies chose the foreigners above us despite local content giving us an upper hand. But the law is being pushed aside by these shipping companies and engaging the services of the foreigners,” he lamented.

The National President, National Council of Managing Director of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA), Lucky Amiwero, said presently, ship chandling is facing a lot of challenges like capital base as a lot of indigenous ship chandlers have left the business.

“In the 60s, 70s and 80s, ship chandling business thrived within the port environment. But for now, it is not as booming as it used to be for the local chandlers. So there is a need for the government to intervene and see how they can have a supporting role because it is an area where a lot of foreign exchange can be repatriated back into the country,” he said.

According to him, ship chandling business is supposed to be handled by Nigerians because they obtained their licenses from the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).

“The issue of foreign dominance is not only synonymous with ship chandling. If you go to Customs agents, you have the same problem.

The ship chandling business needs a kind of government participation to assist the local ship chandlers have more capital base to do this job.

Also, the Advisory Head/Chief Executive Officer, Kamany Marine Services Limited, Charles Okorefe, queries why Nigeria Customs should provide licenses to foreigners to operate the business, which local operators are kicked out of the ship chandling industry.

“If Customs dedicate their responsibility and feels foreigners deserve to do more, then Nigerians who are supposed to handle the job should cry out because we have chandlers association but I’m not sure if they still exist.

“So the issue with indigenous chandlers, it is their territory and it is their right to protect it because Nigerians cannot go to London or Italy for instance, and be licensed as ship chandlers,” he said.

He said the Customs has to determine the criteria for licensing ship chandlers because it is an indigenous thing that goes along with the Cabotage Act.

Okorefe added that ship chandlers business has to be localised for indigenous people, noting that there is nothing foreigners are doing that indigenous people cannot do in terms of chandling.