Comparative Study on Implementation Outcomes of UNCTAD 40-40-20 and cabotage Maritime Policies in Nigeria

Maritime policies like general transport policies over the years have remained a veritable tool for planning the development of the maritime transport sub-sector in Nigeria and other nations. Experience in most developing African countries has shown that African nations are not lacking in the development of well thought-out policy blue prints for the development of her maritime sectors; they rather have poor policy implementation strategies as past records have shown; thus culminating into the failure and total abandonment of well thought-out maritime development policy plans. An example is the UNCTAD 40-40-20 policy which has helped similar maritime nations as Nigeria to develop adequate capacities in carriage of their seaborne trade and fleet size but has failed to achieve the same feet in Nigeria. The study was thus carried out to assess the implementation outcomes of the defunct UNCTAD 40-40-20 policy in Nigeria, in comparison with the outcomes of the current cabotage policy being implemented by the Nigeria maritime Administration and safety Agency. The historical research design method was used and secondary data were collected and used for the study. The data collected were analyzed using the difference of means model, independent sample t-test and trend analysis. It result showed a decreasing trend in fleet ownership by Nigeria in both UNCTAD 40-40-20 era and cabotage era. The comparative analysis between the indigenous tonnages in the cabotage and UNCTAD 40-40-20 regimes revealed that the mean tonnages of the indigenous ship owners per annum in the cabotage and UNCTAD 40-40-20 regimes are 229477.2145tons and 279286.3636 respectively over the 11 years period covered in the study. There exists a difference in means of -49809.14909 in favour of the indigenous tonnage in the UNCTAD 40-40-20 regime. These imply similar implementation outcomes in both policies. It was recommended that improvement should be made in the implementation of the current cabotage regime to save it from similar failure like the UNCTAD 40-40-20 regime.