The Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), Barr. Hassan Bello has promised that the Council will work to abolish the container deposit made by importers to shipping companies while taking delivery of their consignments at the ports.
Bello who made this known while fielding questions from journalists shortly after touring three shipping companies in Lagos yesterday, described the containers deposit as unnecessary adding that the Council would have to look at the container regime and issue specific regulations so as to bring it in line with the international best practices.
According to him,” On the indemnity, we have some complains from the shippers generally who said that the container regime is extremely harsh and sometimes a good number of shippers are made to pay demurrages which is not created by them. So it is important we look at the shipping companies and come to conclusion that, the cardinal thing is even if you take this container deposit, it has to be returned in four days’ time so that you continue with the business.
“Presently, we think there shouldn’t be any container deposit and that is what we are going to work in the long run to abolish, we have to look at the whole container regime and the issue specific regulation so that it will be in line with the international best practices”.
He disclosed that the Council was close to having an agreement with the shipping companies saying that if the MoU is signed, it will have far reaching consequences on the industry and the country at large.
“The agreement is to find a sustainable mechanism for running business. This agreement will also look at the tariffs that we are currently having and there will be issues on how we got there and let me say that if we are able to conclude, except for one or two issues, then it could have positive impact on the industry”, he added.
The NSC boss however described the tour as a periodic engagement, even as he recalled that a similar one was embarked upon by the council towards the end of last year where it engaged stakeholders with issues that were crucial.
“The Ease of Doing Business in Nigeria is very Germaine to what we are doing. We want to make sure that the shipping companies and the terminal operators and of course other operators key into the government’s Ease of Doing Business system so that we can have very good rating by the World Bank and therefore attract investment to Nigeria”, he concluded.
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