Covid-19: Why Are Customs Brokers Crying More Than Bereaved Over Waving Of Demurrage?
Adumaza Joe Sanni is the National Publicity Secretary of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA)
By Adumaza Joe Sanni
LAGOS MAY 3RD (NEWSRANGERS )-Recently, members of some of the Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarding Associations have been up in arms against the Shipping companies and Terminal operators, through the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), for the waivers of demurrages and rents accumulating due to the effects of COVID-19 on imports especially.
In their view, demurrages and storage charges ought not to be charged on imported goods, despite the fact that Presidential directives keeps the Ports running throughout the lockdown period. Added to this, they have also challenged the Federal Government and by implication, the Nigerian Customs Service for raising the exchange rate from N326.00 to the dollar, to N361.00 to the dollar recently without prior information.
Their grouses in all of these are that those concerned are not supposed to do what they have done or refused to do.
The question to ask though is: what is the locus standi of the Customs Brokers and freight forwarding associations to challenge the issues stated above? The straight answer is: None.
For any discerning mind and professional, these issues are under the purview of importers and exporters associations, who are directly affected by these uninterrogated policies.For one, between the NPA and NSC, who amongst them have the authority to advice or plead with the shipping companies and terminal operators to consider a waiver of demurrage and rent charges, after due diligence andstakeholders engagements?
If this question should be answered apolitically or without political undertones, the answer, especially on the demurrage and rent issue, ought to be the Shippers Council, which have been known to be the Port Regulator- under the Federal Ministry of Transportation, instead of NPA which has found it practically impossible in the past to compel the Shipping Companies to comply with a collective decision to take their empty containers to holding bays, in order to free up the Ports access roads for rehabilitation. NPA has also found it extremely difficult to ease out of the Ports those government agencies not permitted by Presidential Executive Order # 1, to be physically in the Ports, despite the backing of the office of the Vice President through PEBEC.
The fact that NSC have consistently shied away from this responsibility, has made it so confusing, to the extent that NPA keeps barking out ineffective orders that are ignored by these critical stakeholders, because a landlord cannot direct its tenants on the use of its tenancy without a formal engagement and agreement.
The PTF on COVID-19 chairman and Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) has addressed the issue of demurrage in one of its daily briefings, upon which the Executive Secretary (ES) of NSC has issued a directive (after engaging them in meetings) to the shipping companies not to charge demurrage, effective 30th of March 2020, until the lockdown is lifted or relaxed.
Unfortunately, the terminal operators were not included in that directive. Checks later revealed that the avoidance of confrontation between the two government agencies left that lacuna. However, it was understood that as events unfold, the aspect of storage charges will be factored in. The fact that these arrangements have not taken effect has to do with logistics, which was believed is being perfected.
The message here is that, the Customs Brokers and Freight forwarders do not pay these demurrages and storage charges. It’s the importers that are responsible for paying them. Therefore, they are the ones who should pick up the gauntlet and request for these waivers.
Additionally, in these COVID-19 times, in negotiating the waivers for demurrage and rent, an advice should be placed before the shipping companies and terminal operators to seek some remedies, if they agree to waive, from the FGN’s stimulus package. If they get all, fine. If they get some or up to seventy percent, fine. Importantly, and apart from their separate contributions to the fight against COVID-19, they should be seen to be making some sacrifices too.
We, the Customs Brokers and freight forwarders who render professional interfacing services between Customs, other stakeholders and the importers for a specified fee, must not be seen to be wailing or concerned, more than those that should be concerned in the first place.
This same analogy goes for the shifting of the exchange rate from N326 to N361 per the dollar. It’s the importers that should shout the loudest, even though we the Customs Brokers form a subset of the larger market, to which their goods are finally taken for sale. The FGN who, in its wisdom decided, without any stakeholders’ engagement to raise the exchange rate, knew from the onset that it won’t go down well with those mostly affected, but it still went ahead and did it. The NACCIMA, LCCI, MAN, importers,etcshould question the necessity for such, in these COVID-19 trying times.
If ANLCA were to be what it used to be, especially during the Prince OlayiwolaShittu years as National President, ANLCA would have caused an interaction with those who feel the pinch most, for a well-informed position paper to the FGN to reconsider its position. As this is not so, all we should have done, if the Customs Brokers and the freight forwarders felt so concerned was to quietly encourage/advice those who pay the bills to use available official channels to convince FGN to drop the idea or shift grounds on it, instead of threatening to go on strike.
Another interloping agency of the Federal Ministry of Transportation that have abandoned its core mandate, to be a Ports advocacy group – CRFFN – should be advised to do a rethink about their meddlesomeness in Ports operational activities. For God’s sake, they should take a critical look at their mandate as specifically and clearly stated in Section 4 of their establishment Act #16 of 2007, and stop behaving as an association under the Federal Ministry of Transportation.
We do know that their activities are being pretentiously engineered by some renegade members of especially two associations-members of the CRFFN. Their nefarious activities will soon be checked.
Once again, Customs Brokers and the Freight Forwarding Associations should stop misleading the public about their specific mandates and schedules. What is expected of them is to ease the operational challenges of its members, how they can deliver their cargoes without delays and unnecessary expenses during the cargo clearance processes. A situation where honest declarations takes more time and money to exit the ports than a dishonest cargo, calls for the attention of leaders of these cargo clearance associations.
Areas of focus should be, and not limited to, automation of all processes in the Shipping Companies and Terminal Operations; provision of scanning machines in the entire international boundaries- Seaports, Airports and Border Stations; provision of requisite infrastructures at the ports especially durable access roads; training and retraining of Ports operations staff, enforcement of extant Ports laws and regulations;ejection from the Ports of all government agencies not permitted inside the Ports; collection and collation of imports/exports data; fixing of intra-Ports roads infrastructures/equipment; provision of CCTV Cameras in all the operational areas in the Ports;provision of convenient spaces for Customs Brokers use, during transactions; engendering of attitudinal change and discipline; meting out sanctions to infractions;enhancing Associations members’ welfare, etc.
These, and many more, are supposed to be the focus and passion of all the Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarding Associations’ leaders and not crying more than the bereaved at this period or at any other times for that matter.
Enough of this grandstanding and attention-seeking rabble rousing.
Adumaza Joe Sanni is the National Publicity Secretary of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA)
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Posted by News Rangers
on May 3 2020. Filed under Features, National.
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