The recent face-off between some shipping line agents operating in Nigeria and aggrieved stakeholders is a climax of years of agitation over what the users of shipping services refer to unfair and arbitrary imposition of charges on them.
This agitation is an age-long issue, perhaps one of the most problematic issues that the regulators have had to contend with for decades.
These charges involve imposition of unjustified fees, opaque pricing, and unapproved tariff hikes like extra documentation or handling costs, leading to high, unexplained container costs.
It was this tendency to impose these charges that climaxed with the picketing of the offices of some shipping agents earlier in the year. And to save the nation from the embarrassment and also protect the sanctity of the nation’s maritime sector, the Nigerian Shippers’ Council called for a suspension of the charges, even as it called for more dialogue with stakeholders.
As far back as 2017, this face-off and an apparent challenge of the authourity of the Nigerian Shippers Council was before the law courts.
At the peak of the legal battle, an apparently overwhelmed then-Executive Secretary of the Council, Barrister Hassan Bello said that the Council was open to out of court settlement with the service providers.
“We are not the ones who went to court; they (shipping companies) took us to court because they don’t agree that their charges should be done in consultation”
“We are also open to out-of-court settlement if that is the case, but the most important thing is that we have to respect the laws of this country”, he had told a gathering of stakeholders.
In 2018, apparently reacting to the recent strike by road haulage operators in Lagos ports and the alleged culpability of shipping lines, the Nigerian Ports Authourity (NPA) also came hard on four of such companies, namely Maersk Line, Cosco, LANSAL and APS. They were suspended for 10 days.
Again, in 2021, Bello’s successor; Barrister Emmanuel Jime went appealing to the service providers to abide by the Council’s regulatory framework, so as to drive efficiency, transparency and effectiveness of port processes.
Specifically, Jime had charged the shipping companies to operate within the regulatory framework of the Council. He was on a courtesy visit to Maersk Line and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC).
Back to the present. The recent disruption occasioned by opposition to the charges, which was led by the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents has once again brought the need for the passage of the Nigerian Port Economic Regulatory Agency (NPERA) Bill. The Bill seeks to create an agency with statutory powers to regulate activities of all actors in the Nigerian ports system. The Shippers Council is tane up this responsibility, once the Bill is passed and signed into law by the President.
Once the Bill is passed and assented to by the President, it will signal a new dawn in the Nigerian shipping sector. It will empower the Nigerian Shippers’ Council to drop its current disposition towards appealing to service providers and become a Regulator indeed.
While we agree with those who have estimated a yearly loss of between N225 billion and N450 billion on the economy, on account of these excesses and their ripple effect, we are more concerned about the perpetuity of the actions of shipping line agencies, that have used these exploitation to strangulate Nigerian shippers, especially importers.
On a larger scale, the simple truth is that, the shippers only pass the burden of these impositions onto the final consumer, hence fueling inflation.
The action of these multinationals contribute (in no small measure) to the much-touted high cost of doing business in Nigerian ports. It is fact that charges applicable on cargoes dropped in Nigerian ports are comparatively higher than those of neighbouring countries. One of the reasons in the exploitation of shipping companies and terminal operators.
Government (through the Shippers’ Council) appear helpless as these foreign and local interests take advantage of the weak enabling powers of the Economic Regulator. What the Shippers’ Council currently parades is an executive order, which can not in court. This is why shipping agents and others often flex muscles, arm-twist and sometimes blackmail the regulators.
At this point, it is imperative that all stakeholders in the Nigerian maritime industry, and indeed all Nigerians should rise in support of the passage and assent to the Nigerian Port Economic Regulatory Agency Bill.
It is our collective interests to support the transmutation of the Nigerian Shippers Council to this agency
While government and its agencies lament about high cost of doing business in Nigerian ports, it is obvious that it is helpless in the face of arbitrariness being displayed by the multinationals.
We will not be surprised if the shipping lines arm-twist, blackmail or raise phantom reasons the various charges must stay. But, one thing is certain – if government does not do the needful and allows the shipping companies to continue to operate with impunity, the ultimate loser is the masses of the country.
