Anxiety As Shipping Lines Collect Container “Detention Charges” At Nigerian Ports

By DAPO OLAWUNI

Despite the fact that ninety percent of shipping lines in Nigeria do not have container holding bays, and notwithstanding the perenial traffic gridlock and port access roads, shipping companies in Nigeria have continued to collect “Container Detention Charges” from Nigerian importers and clearing agents.

Findings by DAILY TREND NEWS revealed that Container Detention Charges is quite different from Container Deposits.
Container Detention charges are the illegal monies collected by shipping lines on failure of the clearing agent to return their empty containers within a given period of time.

Ordinarily, container deposit is constant across board, for a 20-footer container, the clearing agent pays N100,000 for a container going within Lagos and N200,000 for outside Lagos. While for 40-footer, the charge is N200,000 for container within Lagos and N400,000 outside Lagos.

However, failure of the clearing agents to return the container within seven days, the deposit is depleted, while the shipping companies continue to charge the clearing agent.

According to investigations by DAILY TREND NEWS, should the clearing agent fail to pay the money which runs into as much as N450,000, the shipping line flags the clearing agent’s license, as well as the importer. They ensure that the money is paid in full whenever the importer makes use of the shipping line next time.

A source confirmed to our correspondent that the charges “Varies from one shipping company to another.
When you do not return empty containers on time, your deposit start depleting and when it has been finished, the shipping company still claim you are owing, the shipping company issues you container detention charges”

This illegal practice has now gotten to a crescendo, even as the leadership of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) have raised an alarm, even threatening to embark on indefinite strike at the port.

The agents called on the federal government for intervention, saying that shipping companies practicing these illegal collections must have their licenses withdrawn or sanctioned.

Speaking with journalists in Lagos last week, Vice President of ANLCA, Dr Kayode Farinto described the activities of shipping companies in Nigeria as a cabal, while they continue to repatriate monies to their parent countries at the expense of Nigerians.

Farinto said “The role of the various Shipping Companies in the industry has now become a gang-up, and it is now an international cabal, we have a situation where the shipping companies are smiling to the bank, and i keep saying it that Shippers Council is encouraging them, I stand to be corrected, because I have given them several advise on how to stop this thing but nothing has been done”

“Do you know that the shipping companies repatriate money to their mother companies abroad? On the container deposit, they deliberately frustrate us so that you would pay a lot of money, you deplet your container deposits to the extent that they now slam you with what they call Container Detention Charges”

“This is what is happening now, everyone of them is smiling to the bank and nobody is saying anything about it” he lamented.

Also speaking at a different stakeholders meeting at the Tin Can Island Port recently, Chairman of ANLCA at Tin Can Port Chapter, Prince Segun Oduntan alleged that terminal operators are equally benefitting from the scam called Container Deposits.

He said that container deposits should be scrapped in Nigeria because the country is not at war.

He alleged that there are some powerful Nigerians and politicians collecting returns from these shipping lines, describing them as the cause of numerous challenges at the port.

Speaking, he said “Terminal Operators are benefitting from the scam, if not, they have an association (STOAN), and they would have gone to the government”

“Some of the charges we have on the invoices are vague, some of us have challenged it before and they reversed it, but some stakeholders don’t know, they believe that once it has been printed out, then it is authentic, but it is not”

“Some of the charges we are paying, we are not supposed to pay it. If there is no container deposits, half of our problems would be solved”

“Some of these payments include container cleaning fees, and many other fees running into millions of Naira”

“Some of the monies you see on these shipping companies invoices, since it doesn’t come to us, definitely, it is going somewhere”

“Nigeria is not a war zone, so we don’t need to be paying container deposits” he said