Adegboyega Oyetola, Nigeria’s minister of Marine and Blue Economy has directed the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) to work with participating banks to speed up disbursement of the $700 million Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF), weeks after BusinessDay reported that shipowners were still waiting for their first payout after 7 months of application.
The ministry said Sunday that NIMASA had received 92 applications for the fund, with 20 submitted to the fund’s 12 approved Primary Lending Institutions (PLIs). Only one has been reviewed and submitted back to NIMASA for approval so far.
The CVFF was established under Nigeria’s 2003 Cabotage Act to help indigenous operators acquire and build vessels and expand Nigerian participation in coastal shipping. Eligible fully Nigerian-owned operators can apply for up to $25 million. The fund accumulated for more than two decades without a functioning disbursement process before the government revived the scheme in January this year with an application portal.
BusinessDay reported in August that as many as 60 shipowners had applied, but no funding had yet been disbursed after over 200 days. Shipowners were promised that the entire process would not exceed 90 days.
