The Nigerian Trawler Owners’ Association (NITOA) and the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), have clashed over a burnt fishing trawler, MV Orc iv that was gutted by fire off Bonny channel, Rivers State recently.

Speaking with journalists against the backdrop of the fire outbreak, president of NITOA, Akinsola Amire, accused the NLNG of not going to the site of the fire outbreak to rescue the situation as claimed.

But, in a statement made available to LEADERSHIP, the NLNG corporate communications and public affairs manager, NLNG , Andy Odeh, said the claims by the trawler owners were false and misleading.

According to the NITOA president, when the Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) was contacted about the incident, it claimed to have a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with NLNG on occasion of fire incident but instead of NLNG to salvage the situation, it was asking for a contract before it could carry out the salvage operations.

“NLNG claimed to have gone to the vessel location and reported that the vessel was beyond salvage, meanwhile they did not get to the location of the incident but later asked to sign a contract before the salvage operations could be carried out.

“We must call a spade a spade. It is me today, it can be anybody tomorrow. Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) said they contacted NLNG and NLNG said it was beyond salvage but they never left for anywhere. Then the second day, somebody was asking for a contract.

“Thank God that we didn’t totally lose the vessel and unfortunately, we are still looking for two crew members but probably if there was a response in quicktime, it might not be as bad as it came to be,” he said.

SOURCE oglinks.news