•We will start charging them for using our trucks as ‘holding bay’ —-AMARTO
There is palpable tension at the Apapa and Tin Can Island ports over the alleged refusal of Maersk Line shipping company to receive empty containers from truck drivers, a situation that has led to a decision by the Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMARTO) to start charging shipping companies for using their trucks as holding bays.
The company charges N13, 900 daily as demurrage from clearing agents.
This is even as the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has lamented huge demurrage being paid to shipping companies on the empty containers for the inadequacy of the company to accept its own empty containers. The association called for total picketing of the Maersk Line office in Apapa by truck owners.
Speaking with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos last week, Chairman of the AMARTO, Chief Remi Ogungbemi said that the situation is not peculiar to Maersk Line alone, and that other shipping lines are equally guilty of the practice. He charged the shipping companies to designate a space for the truckers to drop the empty containers.
Ogungbemi in a telephone chat with our correspondent at the weekend said: “As I speak with you, I am in Maersk Line office at Number 2/4 Ede Street in Apapa, I am here as a delegate to come and see and ask them questions on why is it that they have not been receiving their containers, if the space is available, we are ready to go in there and drop the containers so that our vehicles can be free for another business, it is not in the interest of truck owners that containers are left on top of their trucks”
“We have even decided that if shipping companies are not receiving empty containers as at when due, we want to start charging them for using our trucks as ‘holding bay’ for their empty containers, maybe by the time we do that, they would sit up”
“The truckers have met and we decided to send delegates to know why they have not been receiving their containers and why they have failed to provide adequate holding bay for their empty containers. We want to go from one shipping line to another, but we are starting with Maersk Line first today” he said.
Also speaking with our correspondent, National Publicity Secretary of ANLCA, Dr. Kayode Farinto said that Maersk Line is more powerful than the economy of Nigeria because of the backing by some politicians.
He said that the shipping company is smiling to the bank at the expense of helpless Nigerian importers whose container deposit are depleting as a result of the delays in accepting the empty containers.
“This has been the trend in the industry, I have written severally about it, but we have a situation whereby Maersk Line and APM Terminal are powerful than the economy of this country, they are the problem of the maritime industry”
“If the truckers are truly serious, let them use their trucks to block the Maersk Line office, we are the ones losing, our container deposits are gradually depleting away, this country is a lawless country and the elites are the problem, who is their Godfather in Maersk Line? Earnest Shonekan”, Farinto alleged.
Also speaking with Shipping Position Daily, Chairman of International Freight Forwarders Association (IFFA) at PTML Terminal, Sunny Nnebe alleged that he has been struggling for the past two weeks to return a 20 -foot container to Maersk Line to no avail.
“For the past two weeks, Mearsk Line has refused to receive their empty containers, and I am paying N13,900 on each 20-foot container to Mearsk Line”, he alleged.
According to him, as soon as the container refunds is depleted, the shipping company would start debiting the clearing agents and failure to pay the charges would lead to clamping down the license agency.
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