Directors

Nigeria‘s domestic shipping potential is one that has never been in doubt. Nigeria has almost 1000km of coastline and about 10,000km of inland waterways, with thriving Petro-based Local Shipping freight needs.

 Ship Chandelling Services is a trade function that involves procurement, processing, packaging, preservation, maintenance and deliveries of sustenance on board vessel within the ports or in an offshore location. 

According to International Ship Suppliers Association ISSA and as deposited at the Hague, Netherlands.

                                                                       ARTICLE 3

1. SHIP SUPPLIER- A SHIP Supplier is a company, Firm or Entity engaged professionally in the supply of consumable and or non- consumable goods or services to Ships, their owners, manages, crews and passengers.
2. SUPPLIER- A supplier is a company, Firm or entity engaged in the supply of consumable and or non- consumable goods or consumable goods or services to Ship Suppliers.
3. Goods shall mean any or all items ordered by the purchaser and or supplied by the vendor for use on board a vessel or vessels or an offshore oil rig or similar, or incidental to the operation of the aforesaid.

 Ships keep sailing throughout their lifetime and sometimes for months at a stretch before reaching any port. This is exactly why they have to be loaded with all kind of goods including ship provisions, Spare parts, Bonded Stores, Deck Stores, Fresh water, Bunker Supply, Laundering and all the needs of the vessel and her crew in any port they berth. We are not only talking about food. We mean items that are needed for day to day use such as mops, brooms, Rags, Ropes, clips cleaning compounds etc. The business of supplying goods to a ship is an old one. It can be found in any port city. The ships stop at the port and if there is shortage of any consumable or nonconsumable items or materials that the needs to be restocked, the ship Captain or the designated officer visit the ship chandler store or request their service through their shipping agent.  

Most ship chandler maintain credit account with the shipping companies, managers or owners. So, the crew don’t have to worry about paying the ship chandler. The ship chandler enters all the details of the supplies that were provided to the crew of the ship to the shipping company. The shipping company pays the ship chandler on a weekly or monthly basis. This makes the process more convenient as the crew may not have the foreign currency available all the time. Hence Ship Chandelling is described as the vital link in the chain that operates today’s shipping industries.

 The ship chandler gets supply from the local retailers and pays them as soon as the supplies are delivered to them. This ensures that the ship chandler keeps good stock of all the required items. A ship chandler must be very quick in his service delivery as ships generally don’t have much time in port. This is the reason why a ship chandler works in a more professional manner.

The job may seem simple but a ship chandler must have a good knowledge of shipping and maintains good relationship with the suppliers, shipping companies, ship manages and ship owners. They also need a good financial back up as most of the business happens on credit.  Ship chandler generally charges a little higher as they have a lot of operational costs.

EFFORTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

 We had to seek audience with all the relevant government agencies that have the legal authority to address our challenges.

In order to secure jobs in the Oil and Gas upstream sector we had to seek audience with the Dr Emmanual Ibe Kachikwu Honorable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources. The aim was to get DPR and NAPIMS to categorize Ship Chandelling services in the Nigerian Oil and Gas sector. In other words, to unbundle Ship Chandelling function from the general classification of logistics and marine services, which to a large extent is responsible for giving ship chandelling jobs to any maritime services provider. And to also actualize the Nigerian industry content development Act 2010 which exclusively reserved 90% of Ship Chandelling function to indigenes or indigenous companies.

In response to our plea, the Honorable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources directed the following steps to be taken to ensure compliance with National Content targets for Ship Chandelling services as stipulated in the NOGICD Act.

2010. An advisory Committee comprising representative of NCDMB, DPR and NNPC [NIPEX] should be set up immediately to address the issues related to compliance and enforcement of Ship Chandelling services as specified in the NOGICD Act, 2010.

It is our pleasure to inform you that at the moment, Ship Chandelling services has been categorized [Unbundled] in the Oil and Gas upstream sector with DPR and NIPEX in Nigeria.

1. Our Association should engage and collaborate with Nigerian Ports Authority [NPA] and the Nigerian Customs Service [NCS] to devise strategies to deter the operation of unlicensed and illegal chandler operators within Nigerian ports and vessels berths/departure points.

In response, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring board formally inaugurated a committee on May 9th, 2018 in collaboration with our association [NCDMB-ACSSN] to address the following challenges;

1. Draft a formal policy proposal to DPR and NIPEX highlighting the challenges faced by Ship Chandelling services providers due to the absence of a formal sub-category for Ship Chandelling services.
2. Provide actionable intelligence on companies/vessels that are violating the provision of the NOGICD Act [2010] with respect to Ship Chandelling services.
3. Investigation, monitoring and evaluation of non-compliance intelligent report by agencies.

At this junction, we are glad to inform the general public that the committee has worked vigorously for one year now and our report has been submitted for action.

It is our great pleasure also to bring it to your knowledge that our proposals to the NCDMB received great attention by the Executive Secretary of Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board, results will be implemented in the Oil and Gas upstream sector shortly.          

We as well, held various meeting with Customs Controller [License and permit] at Abuja HQ on the process and procedure for single unite renewal of license and modeling a proper recording/tracking of license to meet the current update with DPR and NAPIMS concerning the Oil and Gas upstream sector and enforcement of the breach of CEMA Act by the multinational companies.

On the issues of arbitrary charges and hindrance of access to vessels in the terminals, we held meeting with the Honorable Minister of Transportation on the need to address the purported issues as raised. After long deliberations with him, he directed the Director of marine and safety service to address our complaints. So far, we have held various meetings and correspondence with the Director but to a large extent, nothing meaningful have been achieved with this ministry. Our issues are still ongoing; we will continue to tackle them until there is gainful result.        

Thank you.