A shipper, Reverend Jonathan Nicole, on Tuesday said that importers were experiencing hardship due to constant increase in tariffs at the port.
Nicole, past President, Shippers Association of Lagos State (SALS), in an interview, appealed to government to halt tariff increase at the port for the next six months.
According to him, the cost of doing business at the port have been on the increase in recent times.
He added that by and large the maritime sector was moving on by force of determination towards the emancipation of the trade itself.
“We need to thank all the agencies that have been there working with us all these years and the past six months and now we have new changes in form of new administration coming up.
“In managing with the changes, we want to appeal that the cost of goods have not reduced but rather it seems to be going up because of the exchange rate and many other issues at port.
“Importers are finding it difficult to get additional funds because the money is not there. No matter what the difficulties are, man is made to solve difficulties.
“So we are joining the team of new government to help solve some of these maritime problems because if not solved, it will make the new government uncomfortable when it comes to revenue generation,” he said.
He noted that shippers were very positive that with the new administration in place, everything would begin to take shape, especially the new policy that government would put in place.
He said that shippers would continue to support government policies, adding that government too should listen to shippers’ plight by reducing the cost of doing business.
“This is because as it is, the goods coming in will be faced with additional cost of clearing and when pushed to the open market will bring more hardship to the people due to high cost.
“Also, some importers will not be able to sell due to the high cost of clearing, they will be faced with problem of debt because they cannot pay the loans acquired from banks.
“We are appealing to government to look into the maritime sector critically and bring down cost of doing business at the port,” he said.
He said that for the next six months, maritime operators are looking at what government would put in place to make the sector thrive, urging them not to increase tariff all in the name of targets.
“We don’t want these targets anymore, most especially ones given to the Nigeria Customs Service, as it is used to disrupt business,” he said.
Nicole pointed out that Nigeria had cargo but unfortunately, it cannot be cleared easily in Nigeria and this had been taken to other countries, the ports outside Nigeria due to our issues in trade facilitation.
He said that as a result of this, Nigerian government lost out, urging that whatever incentives they had in those ports should be reintroduced so that importers would come back.
“Now that we have professional at the helm of customs, we look at the projection where they facilitate trade and bring down cost of doing business.
“For the shipping lines, they should ensure that one does not have overhead cost beyond what they can do,” he said.
On the increase in charges of some terminal operators, he noted that the freight forwarders are on it, as they are the ones that handles most of their cargoes.
“They are on it and are discussing with the operators,” he said.
He said that shippers are supporting them because 40 per cent increase n terminal operation at a go was a whole lot and do not think it was sustainable.
“We don’t look at profit at a go, we look at a gradual process to make development. We look at growth as something which is natural.
“So, the more cargo we have the more money the government will have. If you put 40 per cent on the cargo you have on ground, you lose 60 per cent of the cargo that is supposed to come. Those cargoes will go to some other place,” he said.
