The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has attributed the alleged arbitrary charges being imposed b operators of barges to absence of standard Operating Procedures (SOP) among the stakeholders in the barging business.
But, the Director of Consumer Affairs at the Nigerian Shippers’ Council; Chief Cajetan Agu told Shipping Position Daily that the council is already consulting with operators to look at the cost.
He said the situation in which the barge operators came on board was an emergency one, he said under normal circumstances, the NSC, Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) and the Nigeria Customs Service ought to have sat down to draw a standard operating procedure for the barge operators, which was not done.
He however said the council is already working on this, adding that there is need to sit down with concerned stakeholders so as to come up with appropriate pricing.
“We are consulting with the barge operators, they are one of the regulated service providers and definitely any charges that they are going to turn out for their services must be negotiated and approved by NSC, but you know it’s an emergency situation, under normal circumstances Shippers Council, NPA, are supposed to sit down and draw a standard operating procedures for their service, but it was not done, so these are some of the things we are looking at”, he told our correspondent.
“We hear of the complaints of stakeholders, they are equally complaining, so the most important thing is that there is need to sit down with concerned stakeholders and come up with the appropriate pricing and equally come up with a standard operating procedure to guide the business. So that is what we are doing now” he said.
Corroborating the council, freight forwarders and customs brokers had alleged that barge operators were taking advantage of the daily extortion by security officials on the road, to increase their charges arbitrarily.
Our correspondent gathered that the cost of moving a 40ft container from Apapa to Ikorodu is as much as N200, 000 while movement outside Lagos to Ogun state axis cost as much N400,000 to N600,000.
An exporter who spoke to our correspondent on condition of anonymity alleged that the barge operators are always in the habit of increasing their fee at no just cause by taking advantage of the extortion on the road.
According to him “Barge Operators are now operating like demigods, increasing their fee at will, because they know it’s a little bit more reasonable than moving your containers by road transportation.
“If you consider the cost of moving container by barges with moving it by road, it is still a little bit more reasonable and they are taking advantage of that to increase their fee, this is ridiculous.
“I have to pay N400,000 to move two containers to Ikorodu, I have the receipt if you want, this is still very high and I believe Nigerian Shippers’ Council and relevant agencies should do something in that regards” he said.
Also speaking, the National Public Relations Officer of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF); Mr Stanley Ezenga, confirmed that barge operators been increasing their charges, while blaming the bad state of the roads.
“Actually the use of barges to move containers emanated from the fact that the road infrastructure has failed, in other words it is more of a stop gap while they fix the road and initially when they started we welcomed it , but over time with their operation they keep increasing their charges, at one time I engage one of the operators and he said, the taxes collected from them from some of the authorities are high and that was why they had to increase their charges”, he said.
Meanwhile, the President of Barge Operators Association of Nigeria (BOAN) Mr. Edeme Kelikume at a press conference organized by the association recently, lamented that the absence of requisite infrastructure meant that barge operators in the country have to provide their services at various cost parameters.
According to him, “cost regulation is a very sensitive matter, here you don’t have the right infrastructure in place, and people provide their services at various cost parameters. It becomes more difficult for you to impose a particular cost on any operator. That is why I believe it would be very difficult to achieve cost regulation. However, operational regulation is very important just as guidelines, Limited License Agreements (LLA) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are also essential. The cost would be determined by the market at the end of the day. If your service is too expensive people would leave you alone.”
“It is like saying trucks should have upper limit and lower limits or shipping lines should do same. Shipping lines are a bit more coordinated because it is a global community. For local operators, that structure is just not there and at different times of the year you could have varying rates because of the situation in the country,” he stated.
Speaking also, the General Manager Corporate and Strategic Communications NPA, Engr. Adams Jatto stated that the authority is already looking into how to ensure that the barge operators bring down cost of moving containers.
He posited that by the time the road network is completed, they will be forced to bring down the price as freight forwarders may not patronize them any longer.
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