By Francis Ogwo
Plans are underway by the Federal Government to clamp down on shipping lines due to incessant increment in surcharges on Nigeria bound cargo, especially Peak Season Surcharge (PSS).
To tackle this, the Nigeria Shippers Council (NSC), has written to the European Community Shippers Association (ECSA) on behalf of the Nigerian Government lamenting the surcharges as sabotage on Nigeria’s economy.
The Executive Secretary, NSC, Mr. Hassan Bello, had in a recent release stated that the current surcharge for year 2020 was 100 per cent higher than it was in 2018 while stressing that the various trade routes to Nigeria, unlike other countries in the sub-region, have not only an exhorbitant rate structure but the highest number of multiple surcharges in the seaborne freight.
According to reports, one of the shipping lines, Hapag-Lloyd, recently introduced PSS on all containers coming through Apapa and Tin Can Island ports.
It was also reported that the surcharge is $1,025 for 20 and 40ft containers coming from the United States, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong and $1,025 or EUR 930 for containers coming from other countries.
Bello, in the strongly worded letter, stressed that Nigeria cannot afford the frequent increases in surcharges adding that the country will protest against it.
He described the surcharges as insensitive and discriminatory since such surcharges are not imposed on shippers in other neighbouring countries of Ghana, Togo and Benin Republic.
He added that it was wrong to have introduced such surcharges at a time the economy is just trying to recover from the effect of the coronavirus pandemic.
He said that already the Council has written a letter to the Shipping Lines Association in Nigeria to protest against the surcharges.
THISDAY learnt that notable freight forwarders associations were planning on how to mobilise members to protest the surcharges by the shipping lines.
The NSC had last year identified about eight surcharges being imposed on shippers in Nigeria and other neighbouring countries with negative impact on the economies.
The surcharges include PSS; extra risk insurance (ERI)/carrier security fee (CSF) surcharge; congestion surcharge (CS); freight tax surcharge (FTS); operations cost recovery (OCR); low sulphur surcharge (LSS); Bunker adjustment surcharge(B.A.F) and C.A.F. (currency adjustment surcharge).
Participants from 16 countries, who attended a conference organised by the NSC in collaboration with the Union of African Shippers Council Councils and Global Shippers Forum (GSF) in August last year in Abuja, had condemned the surcharges and high local shipping charges by international shipping lines.
The 16 countries said they cannot afford to fold their hands while foreign shipowners and their agents continue to rip-off shippers through arbitrary charges.
Part of the consensus agreement was to take up the matter with foreign shipowners at a meeting of GSF, which held London in September.
In the words of Bello, who was the Chairman of a Standing Committee on Trade and Transport during the meeting, African countries must check the excesses of the shipowners and their agents.
Bello, while speaking on the arbitrary increase in charges and introduction of new nomenclatures by shipping lines, said member states should insist that shippers must be consulted before new charges are imposed on them.
He also said shippers must take time to study and ask questions on the component of the charges being presented to them and agree on their justification before payment is made.
Bello was of the view that shippers’ councils in West Africa should comply with the suggestion by the Secretary General of GSF, James Hookman, to resort to legislation if the foreign ship owners continue to impose such charges without negotiation.
