The Nigeria Shippers’ Council yesterday called on all importers and their clearing agents who have had their consignments trapped at the terminal belonging to APM Terminals in Apapa port on account of the concessionaires system failure in almost five weeks to come up with their genuine invoice for a refund on charges that were imposed on them by the terminal operators.
The economic regulator of the nation’s port gave this verdict at the end of a resolution meeting between the various freight agents association and the terminal operators in Apapa yesterday.
At the meeting which was attended by all the parties, the Council directed APMT to refund all storage charges to the importers because the problem which led to the containers’ long stay at the terminal was squarely attributable to the concessionaire.
At the end of the meeting which was chaired by Deputy Director Compliance , Monitoring and Enforcement at the Nigeria Shippers’ Council; Chief Cajentan Agu told our correspondent exclusively yesterday ,that since the delay was orchestrated by APMT, there is need for them refund storage charges already collected from the freight forwarders.
Agu said that the concessionaire has been ordered to pay all those affected by the demurrage charges by shipping companies, because according to him, APMT is the cause of the delay.
He further added that, "at the end of the meeting, we reached two resolutions and the first one was that all importers and agents that are really sure that they paid for storage charges, occasioned by the delay caused by APMT should come with their invoice for reconciliation or refund"
"Secondly, people that also paid for demurrage charges paid to shipping companies are expected to get refund because of system failure by APMT and they should be responsible for that as well, for the delay".
The deputy director also urged representative of terminal operator to channel the order of the council to the managing director of APMT.
Meanwhile, our correspondent gathered that the representative of APMT threatened to protest Nigeria Shippers’ Council directive.
But Agu also noted that a week notice has been given to the concessionaire to respond to the directive based on the resolution reached by agents and the APMT.
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