The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency , had in March this year, said it received the approval of president Muhammadu Buhari to disburse the CVFF to qualified indigenous maritime operators in line with the treasury single account policy and the CVFF guidelines of 2006.
However, the agency is yet to apply the over $200 million fund to acquire vessels for local ship owners who have been struggling to survive due to inadequate funds to run their business.
He, however, advised ship owners to write a protest letter to the president seeking the disbursement of the fund and explain why the fund is a private fund. “The owners of the fund should write to the president and copy me, and then I will go back to the president. The law says it is not a public fund, now that they are aware they should write to say we are aware of the approval, and we are aware of the protest by the minister of finance and if I have all these, I will go back to the president,” the minister said.
He maintained that with the commissioning of the Deep Blue Project, vessels that were unable to visit the eastern ports can now do so without fear of attacks.