Fresh indications have emerged that shipping companies in Apapa port are now charging importers extra funds immediately their statutory container deposits is exhausted and the container is yet to be returned.
Speaking with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos yesterday, one of the victims of the new scheme, Mr. Pius Davis alleged that one of the shipping companies, GAC Shipping is charging him N1,12,00,000 as container refund after the N100,000 he deposited was exhausted.
Davis claimed that his importer had taken delivery of his container and subsequently returned the container after two days. He however lamented that due to the ever-present traffic gridlock leading to Lagos port, precisely the Tin Can Island Port, the container could not get into the Tin Can Island Container Terminal (TICT).
Pius lamented that the major challenge facing port operators now is that container deposits are no longer refunded by shipping companies due to delays experienced in the long queue of Apapa traffic.
Speaking, he confirmed that "I am the agent who have the contract from the importer and I did the job, under three days, the empty container was returned to the port, we didn't know what happened. But the shipping company is now saying that the container didn't get to the port because of lack of holding bay on the part of the shipping company which they are supposed to provide"
"The container deposit they normally collect is dropped by the agent in case of you not returning the container on-time, we deposited that money and it has been deducted. The same shipping company is now charging us and counting demurrages on what we do not know and we are not supposed to be the provider of truck park"
"The name of the shipping company is GAC Nigeria Limited. The container was cleared at Bollore Terminal at Kirikiri phase 2, but the empty container is supposed to be returned to TICT"
"We dropped N100,000 as container deposit, when they finished deducting it, they are now charging us N1,12,00,000.
What they are saying is that we should come and pay demurrage accrued for the period of which the empty stayed on the truck in a gridlock", he lamented.
Davis lamented that part of challenges confronting port operators is that containers stay on trucks for two to three days without being dropped at the terminals.
He said "Shipping companies under normal circumstances should have where they got their holding bays, but now they don't have it, and because of the bad roads, container would stay ontop of a truck for months before having access to the port. This is a port where the federal government has sold out virtually all the space, so where do you have to drop containers?"
Our correspondent, in an attempt to get more insight into the matter placed a call to the Managing Director of TICT, Mr. Ettiene Rocher, but he never answered. Also, efforts to reach the management of GAC shipping proved abortive.
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