There is palpable anxiety at two major vehicle terminals in one of Lagos ports; Five Star Logistics Terminal and the Ports and Terminal Multiservices Limited (PTML) over the recent introduction of documentation fee of N10,000 and recovery fee of N15, 000.
Clearing agents operating at the two terminals have alleged that the terminal operators were frustrating clearing of vehicles with the introduction of the news charges.
Speaking with Shipping Position Daily at the Tin Can Island Port in Lagos last week, Public Relations Officer of Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Tin Can Port Chapter; Mr. Emmanuel Onyeme urged the Federal government to prevail on the concessionaires to make clearance of vehicles at the port seamless in order to attract more vehicles into the country, especially now that such importations through the land borders have been banned.
He alleged that the new charges are only being collected at Five Star terminal and PTML, even as he said that the association had written letters of protest to the management of the two companies to no avail.
He told our correspondent that, " we have a lot of issues that have to do with the invoicing we are getting right now, recently we saw a lot of Debit notes, some of them came in as 'documentation fee' of N10, 000 and some of them with 'recovery fee' of N15,000. This has been an issue bordering everybody because of the situation of things in the country at the moment, things are not really going fine"
"We have met with MD of Five Star Terminal, Mr. Wolfgang Schneider and he promised that the charges would go away, but after few days we saw it again and the explanation they gave us was not satisfactory"
"We want to know the meaning of ‘documentation fee’ and ‘recovery fee’; we want them to tell us the meaning of that 'recovery fee', are they trying to recover the port? Are they trying to recover the lost ship?
Onyeme recalled that since the Federal government has directed that vehicles should no longer come in through the borders, the expectation of port operators is that the terminal operators would improve their services up to standard.
He said this was the only way they can encourage importers to bring in vehicles, adding that if the operational procedure becomes so tedious for vehicle importers, they would go back to the borders and continue with smuggling.
The ANLCA spokesperson also alleged that Five Star Terminal and PTML usually apply delay tactics in the movement of vehicles from the ships side to the terminal. He said that this is to ensure that the first three free days of demurrage given statutorily to importers elapse.
"They should look at their invoice rate and do away with some of the manual processes of taking delivery at the terminals. We don't experience recovery fee at Ports and Cargo, we only get such at Five Star and PTML"
"When ships berth, they leave the cargo at the ships side for the free period to elapse before sending it into the terminals, they make sure that they waste the three days so that they can start collecting demurrage"
Also speaking with Shipping Position Daily at the PTML Terminal, another member of ANLCA; Mr. Famakinde Olayinka lamented that the terminal is adopting delay tactics in the transfer of containers to its Mile 2 bonded terminal.
He noted that the association has written letters to the management of PTML to remove the illegal charges before it snowballed into protests and crisis at the port.
"Presently we have vehicles at PTML that have not been transferred to Mile 2 bonded terminal, they make sure that your free three days of grace are wasted at the berth, after this they would start charging you demurrage immediately"
"We are expecting invitation from the terminal operator for a meeting", he said.
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