The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi has accused the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, of frustrating the disbursement of the fund, again dashing the hopes of indigenous shipowners who have been waiting to assess the fund for over 17 years.
The CVFF, which currently stands at over $200million and is warehoused in the Treasury Single Accounts (TSA), has become an issue of controversy, as past administrations of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) were not able to disburse it.
Recall that, in March, the agency said it had received the approval of President Muhammadu Buhari to disburse the fund to qualified indigenous maritime operators in line with the TSA policy and the CVFF Guidelines of 2006.
However, speaking with journalists in Lagos, on Friday, at the two-day ministerial retreat for agencies under the ministry, Ameachi, revealed that despite securing the approval of the President and the Attorney-General of the Federation, (AGF), Abubakar Malami, (SAN), to disburse the fund, the Minister of Finance, protested against the disbursement, saying that the CVFF is a public fund, hence it shouldn’t be disbursed to private operators.
“The President has made an approval, saying go ahead and disburse. The Attorney- General of the Federation said go ahead and disburse as the law says it is private funds. But the Minister of Finance protested that the money is public funds and therefore cannot be spent. So, what do I do?’ I am handicapped,” he lamented.
Amaechi, however, asked indigenous shipowners, who are owners of the fund, to write a protest letter to the President explaining why the fund is a private fund to enable him to present the matter again before the President.
Also speaking, the NIMASA Director-General, Dr. Bashir Jamoh, attributed the delay in the disbursement of the fund to technical hitches, which he said the agency was not a party to, but assured that efforts are on-going to resolve them before the funds could be disbursed.
