The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders, NAGAFF has issued a 5 working day ultimatum to the management of the PIL Shipping Agency to scrap the detention levy it slammed on importers and their agents or face mass action.
The Chairman of the Kirikiri Lighter Terminal, KLT chapter of the association, Engr. Emmanuel Umeadi who issued the ultimatum in a telephone interview with Primetime Reporters on Friday said that if at the expiration of the ultimatum, the management of the company refused to address the issue, it would leave them no option than to embark on a peaceful protest, sue the company and arrest its Managing Director.
According to Umeadi, twenty one days free period is usually given to the importer on any laden container from the port of loading and when it comes to Nigeria, all he needs to do is to pay local charges and container deposit.
He observed that instead of restricting itself to the known local charges and container deposit payable on any container, the management of PIL would go ahead and slam additional cost amounting to over three hundred thousand naira as detention levy thereby bringing the total cost per container to about eight hundred thousand naira.
“It is unacceptable to our association. No shipping company in Nigeria does that and when you apply for your container deposit that was meant to be refunded within 24 hours, it will take three to four weeks to be refunded. They will be using your money to do business or they may tell you that the container has a dent while the container has no dent. They will be looking for a way to delay the refund of the money paid as deposit.
“So, our association is asking PIL to remove the extra days they print or we will embark on a peaceful protest, sue them and arrest their MD. They should reverse themselves by going back to the practice where if you have twenty one days free period, there’s no need for them to print extra three weeks to two months for you to pay. It is fraudulent and it is not acceptable to us. Again, it’s not business friendly.
“You can’t import and have free days, when they print, they print additional two to three weeks, when you are not owing them detention. Going by the practice of if you bring back your empty, they will give you back your deposit, what is the essence of paying the container deposit that they collected?
“They will intentionally print detention for you for three weeks or two weeks. It is not acceptable anywhere. The additional weeks is a smart way of stealing our money and holding back our money when they are also in custody of our container deposit. Meanwhile, these containers that they are holding our monies on are on lease.
“Meanwhile, nobody is stealing their container because no agent can successfully steal their container without the connivance of their staff. Their staff must be involved. They should carry out their investigation very well. If they think they are done doing business in Nigeria, they should park their things and go, not sabotaging the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government by saying that things are hard.
“They are technically sabotaging the efforts of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Nigerian Shippers’ Council. They are stealing us dry. A client cannot have a free day out of the twenty one days and you print container deposit and you are printing additional days again thereby making the cost of clearing so high”, he lamented.
Asked how long this development has been, he said, “I called one Esther, a staff of the company and she said that it’s management decision asking that I should send an email to management and by writing an email, time will be going.and if they eventually approve a waiver for me, who pays the demurrage for the number of days it took for the problem to be resolved? She said it’s a management decision which means that it has been happening for a very long time.”
Asked if he had drawn the attention of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council on the development, the Chairman said, “Drawing the Shippers’ Council attention to this development will be time wasting. The fast track to resolving this issue is peaceful demonstration. If at the end of the peaceful protest the situation doesn’t change, we will head to court. We are giving them five working days after which if they fail to address this issue, we will embark of peaceful protest.”
Photo: Engr. Emmanuel Umeadi, Chairman, NAGAFF, KLT Chapter.
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