The Deputy National President of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders, NAGAFF, Chief Afam Chukwuma has blamed the Port economic regulator, the Nigerian Shippers’ Council for its inability to curb the excesses of the service providers including the terminal operators and the shipping companies who are falling over each other in announcing increment in their charges even when the fact on ground does not justify such increment.
Speaking in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos recently, Chukwuma observed that gone were the days when the terminal operators and the shipping companies would want to resolve issues with you when threatened with a report to Shippers’ Council adding that nowadays, when threatened with the Shippers’ Council, the terminal operators and the shipping companies would even get there before you and most of the times, nothing would come out of it.
“So, now, we have more of romance as against more of regulation that we used to have. In the days of Hassan Bello, we were all witnesses to when he shut down and locked up TICT. We were all here when he was almost going to shut down Maersk Line and they sat up. They wouldn’t try this but today, they know how they go about to have their way.
“I am not criticizing whoever is there, I have nothing personal against him but I am analyzing it the way it is and that’s why I said he should sit up. Let them sit up and regulate unless they are telling us that they are in support of all of these increments coming from left, right and centre.
“I wouldn’t know, I think it’s about leadership. We are interest group, a freight forwarding association and our own is to support when things are going right and to point out, criticize constructively with a view to aiding whoever is in charge to do the right thing and get things right.
“So, I am telling the current leadership of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council that it should sit up and regulate and ensure this distorted and incessant increment, it should play the economic regulatory role that they have been fighting for all their lives. They should do it, if not, this industry will collapse under their care. It will be marred and be killed by pricing.
“This wouldn’t happen in saner climes and I want to believe that the Executive Secretary and the management team of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council are hearing me loud and clear”, he said.
Surprised to learn that the terminal operators were contemplating increment again this year, he said, “We just had a run off with them about a year ago where they made over five hundred percent Increment and we asked them at that time why are you making increment? Even if you want to make increment, why is it five hundred to six hundred percent Increment?
“And then, if you must increase, why is it on storage? Storage is not supposed to be your source of income, storage is supposed to serve as deterrent for people to quickly remove their cargoes and not see the port as a warehouse. So, if you made the claims as you did, that due to high cost of things in the country, handling services, cost of diesel, overhead, you can make marginal increment in your cargo handling charges and on your basic charges that are static and one off such that when someone pays for a particular service, he will pay for the cargo at that time, the increment affects that payment on that cargo once.
“But not for you to go to storage as if it is a service and begin to increase and not just increasing, you moved from ten thousand naira the last time to over ninety thousand naira. It took the fight and the efforts of freight forwarding associations like NAGAFF for you to come down to sixty thousand naira or thereabout. This is unacceptable but unfortunately, that is what we have today.
“And just a year plus, you are still talking about increment? I don’t know how to describe that. The shipping companies seeing that the terminals have succeeded, have never rested since that time. They have been striving to increase also, even some have started implementing little increment without approval from the economic regulator, the Nigerian Shippers’ Council.
“There’s so much impunity in the industry, everybody does what he likes, they increase at will, it’s happening from both the private sector and the NPA.
“Nigerian Shippers’ Council needs to sit up at this time. It needs to sit up to its economic regulatory role. We have been fighting for this for a long time. NAGAFF has been in the forefront supporting them, and now, they have it, they need to get down to doing their job otherwise, the cost of clearing a cargo will be extremely high because even the customs itself increased when they had to introduce the Nigeria Customs Service Operations Finance or what is popularly known as 4 percent FOB levy which generated a lot of uproar, it was removed. Now these people want to come up with increments.
“Imagine all of these happening at the same time. Will the common man still be able to buy anything? You pay high duty, you pay high truck cost, NPA will have its own increment, you pay high storage, at the end of it all, it boils down to the landing cost because the business man is doing business. He cannot spend one million naira as landing cost and you expect him to sell at a price that at the end of the day, he should be making less than one million naira. That means, he won’t be able to make a second purchase or restock.
“We need to support the President in his efforts to right the economy of the country. I would like to finally urge all government parastatals and agencies and service providers, be it private or public to consider the masses, the general growth of the industry and the economy at large and to put patriotism first in whatever they do so that we can have a stable economy especially in the Marine and Blue Economy Sector”, he pleaded.
Photo: Chief Afam Chukwuma, Deputy National President, NAGAFF.
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