The Secretary, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Tincan Island Chapter, Evang. Chuks Kanikwu has described the five days waiver granted to the importers and their agents by the management of the Tincan Island Container Terminal (TICT) after the lull occasioned by the truckers’ strike as unacceptable.
Kanikwu who made this known in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos on Tuesday disclosed that as a result of the truckers’ strike which lasted till the 18th of September, 2015, importers and their agents could not get trucks to take delivery of their consignments from the terminal which also affected the terminal management as they could not get trucks transfer containers to their off-dock terminal at Scoa during the period.
He stated that they appealed to the TICT management after the strike to waive the period during which the truckers were on strike for them which the management turned down on the premise that the terminal was offering services even during the strike period.
“Now, what goes around comes around. This period they could not get vehicles to carry these containers just like the ordinary importers and agents felt, to their base 1 but now they decided to be charging from the day the ship berthed, when the container had not reached its point of destination.
“When that happened, a lot of our members, more than one thousand came to our office and brought this complain and I took up this matter personally with the MD/CEO of TICT in the person of Etienne Rocher, he said they will not waive those period. Remember I said they refused to waive for us because of the transporters’ strike.
“Then, we equally talked about containers that are ready for delivery but they were on block stack, then when they broke their stack, they were telling the agents to go and upgrade their ratings for no fault of theirs. It is their inability to deliver that occasioned the delay in taking their cargoes.
“These and other matters like when you come for examination, to book for examination, after paying for their terminal charge, they will give you eight days for you to be able to see space to drop your containers for customs to examine. What happened to the rent for the eight days? They are not waiving it.
“So, we engaged this man with these agents yesterday (Monday), we had a lengthy meeting with them, he was trying to convince us that he needs DO (Delivery Order) before he will stem those containers but you can only get delivery order when they have examined your containers, release them and you can print exit before you go to the shipping company to release your cargoes.
“This suggestion he made, we suggested to him that he is pushing our people to go and continue falsification of documents because where will they get exit when the container have not arrived where it is supposed to go and if the dwell time of the container is in your terminal, you are on block stack, they don’t have access to it”, Kanikwu said.
He recalled that after an extensive meeting with the TICT management which produced no immediate solution, the TICT MD promised to get back to them only for him to inform them on Tuesday that the management would only waive beginning from the 23rd of September rather that from the 18th that the truckers called off their strike.
According to him,” He now decided to give only five days, when you calculate from 12th to 28th, that is fifteen days and now he is giving five days when they refused to give on our request on first major on transporters’ strike. Who is fooling who?
“Now, at the worst case scenario, they could have started their waiver from the 18th when they were supposed to work or even from the 15th giving themselves the normal three days. So, by and large, it is an exercise that they are testing the resolve of Nigerian importing public because if I can’t access my container, how do I deliver?
“So, we are not satisfied with the only five days period that he is waiving, we are not satisfied. The practice is supposed to be, when the people write application, you send it to the terminal, they will stamp for you the day the boxes entered there and it is from that day you start billing them.
“The next thing we will do because we have been sensitizing our members is to picket them and engage them, maybe disrupt their activities and they will lose money and see how it pain people when you are losing money”.
Meanwhile all attempts made by this correspondent to speak to the management of the TICT proved abortive as all the phone calls put across to them were not answered neither were they returned as at the time of filing this report.
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