Stakeholders believe that until something is done to tame recalcitrant shipping companies, so long will Nigerian importers remain slaves in their own country, FOSTER OBI WRITES
Earlier today, clearing agents operating at Lagos ports warned of their intention to withdraw their services from the port if the oppressive activities of shipping companies were not called to order.
Giving a two week ultimatum, the Customs brokers complained of series of operational breaches and extortionist behaviour of the shipping companies which must be addressed without delay.
They include depletion of container deposit refunds, undue debits on equipment detention which brings the Customs brokers into collision course with their transporters and principals.
“ The shipping companies engage in unnecessary extortions of our transporters up to N150, 000 before dropping empty containers which is then passed back to us before returning our container cards.
“ We are also being subjected to incessant network issues which lead to inability to raise invoices and transmit TDOs to which we lose not less than N10million per day,” they lamented, among others.
Like the typical Nigeria scenario, shipping companies which are owned by foreign firms behave like Lords in Nigeria.
They set their own rules and fleece importers and exporters with such oppressive bravado suggesting that they understand the terrain and may have compromised certain power brokers in the country who provide them covering fire.
In a recent interview, President of Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Iju Tony Nwabunike, said that one of illegal actions that the shipping companies carry out is that they bring in containers into the country and refuse to take back the empties, especially the ones that were already becoming disused thereby littering the ports.
“ Now, let me ask a question, why should a vessel of Maersk Line coming into this country, for example, with 350 containers and leave empty without taking a single empty container?
“And the following morning, another vessel will come, putting another 400 containers and leave empty. And they now go to neigbouring countries like Ghana, Cameroun and all the rest of them and carry their empty containers back No their countries and using Nigeria as a dumping ground of empty containers.”
He said the shipping companies know that nobody supervises their activities because they are not answerable to any government agencies any further.
“I remember when NPA was NPA; they will never dare to take containers to this place and not taking the same number of containers out of the country. Why not give them that mandatory idea that the moment you are coming into this country, you take the same number of containers out of this country.
“And you know the funniest thing; most of those shipping companies have gotten very top and big Nigerians as their chairmen. So what it means is that if you take them to the National Assembly, they will go there, sort themselves out and come back and continue doing what they want to do. So they are becoming bigger than the government,” he noted.
“Why is it that the Federal Government has not taken the bull by the horn to sanction all the shipping companies? Why are they scared of them? Who actually made them so bogus that no government wants to touch them? Who made them untouchable? Today, everywhere is littered with empty containers, you can’t even move. Lagos State government is equally tired,” he declared.
One sensitive area that has created continued tension at the ports is the charges collected by shipping companies and terminal operators from Nigerian shippers which has severally pitched them against the nation’s Port Economic Regulator, the Nigerian Shippers’ Council for over a decade now. The shipping companies subject Nigerian importers and exporters to the huge charges, leaving the Nigerian economy hemorrhaging in the process .
From research, some of the charges include; Shipping Line Agency Charges, SLAC, Container Deposit Charges, CDC, Container Cleaning Charges, CCC, Storage Charges, and many others.
SLAC is an extra charge slammed on shippers after it was already included in the shipping charges paid by the shipper at the point of import.
The CCC is charged on all containers even when such containers do not carry items that will need cleaning after content discharge.
CDC is unfortunately peculiar to only Nigeria. It is paid as a refundable deposit in lieu of the container pending the time the content is removed and the empty container returned to the shipping lines who are the owners of the empty container.
For some obvious reasons, the return is made difficult by the inaccessibility of the ports and the shippers are made to incur demurrages for delayed returns and end up losing the CDC refund. If the shipper returns the container late, he or she loses part of the deposit.
As a result of the bad situation of the port access roads which generates traffic gridlock, trucks returning containers spend several weeks on the road while the terminal operators are accused of rejecting or causing obstruction for those intending to return their containers to ensure that they lose their deposit.
Reports show that between 2006 and 2020, the accumulated illegal charges collected by terminal operators and shipping companies is estimated at over N4 trillion.
Due to numerous complaints by stakeholders in the Maritime industry, the Nigerian Shippers Council waded into the matter and directed that both shipping lines and terminal operators stop further collection as well as return to the shippers all monies already collected.
The immediate past Executive Secretary of the Council, Barrister Hassan Bello, had told Licensed Custom brokers in a meeting that his organisation was committed to protecting the interests of users of shipping services in Nigeria.
Hassan Bello, a visionary and calculated administrator confronted the shipping companies headlong wrestling them down them in the process.
He disclosed that the Council was working closely with the National Insurance Commission, NAICOM to stop further payment of CDC.
He said both parties had met to strategise on the best measures to curb the huge costs associated with the charges, adding that with the difficulty the importers, agents, and truckers go through to return their empty containers, it was not right to charge them for the delays which is not their fault.
But the shipping companies, saw their avenues to fleece Nigerians gradually slipping away that they went to court.
It will be recalled that the NSC published an advertisement announcing the reversal of illegal storage charges at the ports to what was in force as at May 1, 2009.
The Council also ordered an extension on the free storage period at the port from three days to seven days, and equally directed shipping companies to reduce their shipping line agency charges from N26,500 to N23,850 per TEU and from N48,000 to N40,000 per TEU.
They also directed shipping agencies to refund container deposits to importers and agents within 10 working days after the return of the empty containers.
But not satisfied with the directive of the NSC, terminal operators under the umbrella of Seaport Terminal Operators of Nigeria, STOAN and shipping agencies under the auspices of the Association of Shipping Line Agencies, ASLA dragged the Council before the Federal High Court, challenging its powers to reduce their charges.
The NSC filed counter charges which forced the high court to not only affirm that the NSC as the Economic regulator was in order but mandated the shipping companies to refund all the Shipping Line Agency Charges (SLAC) they’ve have collected from 2006 till date which ran into trillions.
Not relenting, the group went to the Appeal Court, where the matter was also quashed, incurring more cost before proceeding to the supreme court.
While the matter remains in court, the shipping companies have continued to muzzle importers and agents without recourse to the law.
Without doubt, Hassan Bello had began the administrative and legal works to get the shipping companies and terminal operators to obey the laws of the land with respect to charges, but the war seem far from being won.
Bello had pointed out during his tenure that importers are annually subjected to payment of N1.7 billion as container deposit fees to foreign shipping companies.
He said that the Council will work at stopping the payment of container deposits before the end of the second quarter of this year which never was.
According to the NSC boss, “every shipper pays N120,000 as container deposit fee to foreign shipping companies, with the estimated total amounting to N1.7 billion every year for container deposit only. This is adding to the cost of doing business in our ports and is not the fault of the shippers, but because he cannot return the container within the specified time due to the fact that the roads are clogged up, and the holding bays are not working; so why must the shipper bear such cost?
He also revealed other plans in the pipeline which was never concluded before his term of eight years elapsed.
“We want indemnity system and we have already spoken with National Insurance Commission, NAICOM to bring insurance penetration into our port system. Hopefully, by the first quarter of next year, there will not be payment of container deposit again, he noted.
Having laid a good foundation, to rein in erring shipping firms, the current, Executive Secretary of the NSC, Emmanuel Jime, has to take it from there.
Even if this is the only thing he achieves within four years in office, history will judge him right.
He has a duty to explore all possible avenues and work closely with NAICOM and strategic stakeholders to put the whole madness and unwarranted bravado in check.
As a politician, the shipping companies and operators may want to get him compromised to neutralize him.
He has a choice to make and choosing right will put him on the good side of history. He has time to study the situation properly before wading in, but he must understand that he is dealing with hawks that are ready to mess up his career.
FOSTER OBI is the Editor of DFCnewsng.com
Picture: Emmanuel Lyambee Jime, Executive Secretary Nigeria Shippers Council
