Stakeholders have lamented that overregulation and regulatory overlap are affecting operations in the nation’s maritime industry.
The concerns were raised last week at a shipping and maritime webinar themed, ‘Nigeria’s Maritime Compliance Landscape: Balancing Local Requirements and Global Competitiveness.’
Speaking during the webinar organised by Dentons ACAS-Law, a Nigerian commercial law firm, the President of the Shipowners Association of Nigeria, Sunny Ejah, explained that the nation’s maritime sector operates as one of the most regulated sectors of the economy.Ejah said the problem is not regulation itself but ensuring it drives greater compliance and enhances competitiveness.
According to him, while this is a global business, it has to be carried out safely. “Therefore, regulation itself is not a challenge; the real issue is ensuring that regulation promotes more compliance and competitiveness.”
“As president of SOAN, we have had interactions with stakeholders where these challenges come to bear. I will start with the first one, which is the regulatory overlap; you have a situation where various agencies often exercise oversight functions on the same issue. A typical issue is where you have this government agency coming up with this agenda and the other agency is also handling the same,” Ejah said.He also highlighted the issue of multiple documentation required to execute an operation, “and these things come at a cost; they are not free. So, at the end of the day, what we have often advocated has always been for greater coordination among these regulators and all that. I have asked if all these agencies can come together as one.”
He mentioned the inability to predict the regulatory processes as another major challenge facing the sector.
“The other challenge has to do with how to predict all these processes; where you can’t predict them it is a huge challenge. At the end of the day, if we are not able to predict the outcome in terms of regulation in Nigeria, it will affect us. Of course, if I am looking forward to partnering with an investor, some of them are looking for certain guiding licences and approvals and all that, and when they are not predictable, it becomes difficult to plan,” he said.
Another issue is that of international best practices as well. I know as a country we have made commendable progress in implementing some of the international maritime conventions, but then there is a need for us to continually review our local regulations to ensure that as we are playing in this industry, facilitating global trade, we are also encouraging investment and strengthening indigenous capacity while we remain fully aligned with global standards,” Ejah added.The shipowner emphasised that compliance and competitiveness should not be viewed as opposing factors.