Manning agents snub Nigerian seafarers

Manning agents snub Nigerian seafarers
September 5, 2018 https://newtelegraphonline.com/2018/09/manning-agents-snub-nigerian-seaf...

Manning agents are hiding under Cabotage waiver clause to employ foreigners, as thousands of Nigerian seafarers keep wandering without jobs.

It was learnt that they enjoy waivers from the Federal Ministry of Transportation through manning agents, who employ the foreigners and place them on board vessels.

Chairman, Nigerian Port Consultative Council (NPCC), Otunba Kunle Folarin, said that more than 12,000 foreign seafarers from Philippine, Malaysia, Japan and other countries were currently engaged in Nigerian oil and gas platforms and vessels.

Folarin, who is also the Chairman, Nigerian Seafarer Welfare Board (NSWB), spoke in Lagos at a seminar organised by maritime reporters that Nigeria had spent about $15 billion to support foreign trade in the last few years with no Nigerian seafarer working on foreign vessels trading in the country.

He called on the government to expunge the waiver clause in the cabotage trade to enable Nigerians get jobs on board the various ships operating in the country’s coastal waters.

The chairman noted that more than 4,000 vessels in the cabotage trade could employ 5,000 Nigerians.

Folarin said that 70 per cent of seafarers working on board cabotage vessels were foreigners.

He said: “Up till today, 70 to 80 per cent of seafarers in our waters are foreigners.

“We need to have a very clear policy regime on how to acquire the vessels on which the local seafarers can work.

“NIMASA has told us that there are over 12,000 registered seafarers with it, but we do not know where they work. There is need to know the reality of the situation.”

Folarin noted that in the last two years, no Nigerian was sighted as a worker on the various vessels that called on Nigerian ports.