Shippers Council to partner NiMet on weather services for ships

Following the concern raised by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) that foreign shipping companies don’t use its weather forecast data thus robbing the country of needed revenue, the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC) has promised to intervene.

However the council said it will only intervene when NiMet deliberately seeks support.

The Executive Secretary, Nigerian Shippers Council, Mr. Hassan Bello disclosed this recently in an exclusive interview with our correspondent Abuja.

Bello noted that the NSC has collaborated with several other agencies to improve their revenues and thus would do same for NiMet.

“We will intervene when the information is made available to us. Other agencies have come to us, like the Plant Quarantine, NAFDAC and SON. Now that you have told me, I will contact NiMet to know how the shipping lines will utilise their services,” he said.

The Director-General of NiMet, Prof. Sani Mashi, recently alleged that ship in operators in Nigeria are perpetrating economic sabotage and inducing capital flight by buying weather data abroad.

Prof. Mashi said, “We are losing billions by not providing weather services to ship operators in Nigeria. We have over 6,000 ships berthing in our ports annually. If these ships use our weather services, the revenue will be in billions, even if we charge just N100,000 per ship.”

He said NiMet was constrained to provide direct services to ship operators except the maritime agencies granted it access.