The National Compliance Joint Taskforce of Licensed Clearing Agents, NCJTFCLA has described the e-call up system otherwise known as Eto as a scam and a conduit for extortion of hundreds of thousands of Naira by the officials of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA and their collaborators.
Reacting to the rejection of e-call up system in the Eastern Ports by the Coalition of Eastern Maritime Stakeholders recently, the National President of NCJTFCLA, High Chief Dr. Basil Nwolisa alleged that the extortion by NPA and its collaborators had skyrocketed the cost of container haulage in the country to the extent that makeshift offices were built on the access roads to the ports.
According to Nwolisa, this extortion had made transporters unable to service their trucks.
On his part, the Public Relations Officer, Western Zone of NCJTFCLA, Comrade Ekene Collins Dike agreed with the position of his National President even as he insisted that Eto was a conduit for NPA extorting maritime stakeholders both truckers and freight forwarders to the tune of billions of Naira, not hundreds of thousands.
Dike alleged that Eto was NPA’s way of compensating and favouring their pseudo truckers and pseudo maritime stakeholders who do not have any stake in the maritime industry that do appear in meetings and in different fora masquerading as maritime stakeholders.
“This is a way of NPA settling them by approving their parks and garages and pre-gates and even the export processing terminal”, he added.
While acknowledging that the concession of the e-call up system to a third party company fall within the confines of NPA, he however, said that NPA was wrong to attach a fee to the Eto call up system.
His words, “It is their right as enshrined in NPA Act to outsource their operations to a third party company. Yes, it is their right but it is not their right to multi-charge. What they are doing is multi-tax, it’s double taxation and it is illegal, not legislated in any law.
“So, please, what they are doing is completely illegal, they do not have the right to charge a dime. Where do they pay tax daily. If my truck enters the port ten times, I will pay ten times. Where do they pay such tax in the whole world? So, what they are doing, by collecting tax per second, per minute is actually illegal. They can use the call up or whatever but they don’t have the right to charge a dime.”
He disclosed that during a meeting between the officials of NPA and members of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG on Eto call-up system, NUPENG applauded the innovation and indicated the willingness of members to abide by the dictates of the electronic call up system provided there’s no cost attached to it.
“That was what killed that ambition of that company. They refused to pay a dime and till today, NUPENG is not onboarded into the same system that we are compelled to pay. At a point, we were paying over thirty thousand for a truck.
“Currently, what is happening, no export container gets into the port through the road without paying above fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, one hundred, one hundred and fifty thousand naira as we speak. The export is the hot cake now.
“So, the same barrier that we pass and pay these hefty money, NUPENG members, the tankers come to the same barrier and they will easily raise the barrier for them to pass. You can go to the Tincan Island’s first and second gates to witness it. So, what is making our own dry containers to be different?
“And let me even inform you, this wet cargo container, there is the ones they call reefer container, what they pay for their container is N10,000. What is the yardstick for measuring this amount that is to be paid? Remind me, whenever we are going to meet, I will hand over to you the obnoxious agreement that was signed between this company, the Nigerian Ports Authority and TTP. Their operating agreement, you can imagine such callous agreement.
“So, it is a conduit for extorting billions of Naira if not trillions of Naira from the maritime stakeholders, truckers, freight forwarders and others and they have been able to sustain this by using divisive tendencies, multiplying several unions so that nobody will have a single voice to unite everybody and whenever you come up to say something, you will see someone else in this same industry, countering what you are saying which he knows is the truth.
“So, they have been using pseudo truckers and pseudo maritime stakeholders to dissuade everybody, even the authorities and the truth is that the authorities pretend as if they are sleeping while they know what they are doing. It is part of the ploy to disintegrate the truckers from asking for what belongs to them”, he submitted.
Meanwhile, attempts to get the reaction of the NPA through its General Manager, Corporate and Strategic Communications, Mr. Ikechukwu Onyemekara proved abortive as his phone numbers were not reachable as at press time.
Send your press invite, news, press releases/articles to augustinenwadinamuo@yahoo.com. Also, follow us on Twitter @PrimetimeRepor1 and on Facebook on facebook.com/primetimereporters or call the editor on 07030661526.
