Clearing agents at the nation’s ports are threatening court action over who should be responsible for payment of demurrages and storage charges caused to the cargo clearance processes following the de-activation of the operations of Five Star Logistics Terminal by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) over Unpaid revenue running into N97.3m at the Tin-Can Island Port in Lagos.
In a statement signed over the weekend by the acting President of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Dr Kayode Farinto, the association said it has given the Five Star Logistics Terminal till Tuesday, 19th of July, 2022 to resolve their issue with the NCS or ANLCA will be suing the terminal operator over the breach of agreement and failure to deliver trapped cargoes to importers.
According to the statement titled ‘Re-Deactivation Of Five Star Logistics From Customs Portal’, ANLCA stated that, “It has been brought to the notice of ANLCA NECOM that our members are unable to exit the already released vehicles and cargoes from the Five Star Logistics due to the fact that the terminal operator has been deactivated from Customs portal as a result of unpaid assessment running into N97.3m.
“We wish to inform our members that ANLCA is on top of this issue and we are saddened about the development.
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“However, we shall be giving the terminal operator between now and next week Tuesday to resolve their issue with the Nigeria Customs Service. If not, ANLCA will be taking them to court for breach of agreement and failure to deliver these cargoes to the importer’s representatives.
“Also, Five Star Logistics Terminal should know that it will be responsible for all demurrages and storage charges that may have accrued on these cargoes within this period (from 6th of July to date).
“Finally we urge our members to be calm and law-abiding and I want to advise that we keep the receipts of all payments during this period.”
On why it took so long for the terminal operator operations to be deactivated, the Spokesman for the Tin-Can Island Customs Command, Uche Ejesieme explained that the terminal was first served the letter of revenue leakages notice at its terminal, and was only deactivated after Customs observed that the terminal operator was not showing signs of responding to the revenue leakage notice.
“After we noticed about N97.3m revenue shortfall in what Five Star Logistics Terminal was ought to have paid government, we served the terminal operator a Demand Notice and waited for them to respond, but they didn’t. That was why it took us till last week to deactivate the terminal from our portal. We gave them grace of some days to respond to the notice that we served them, but they didn’t,” the Customs Spokesman for Tin-Can Island Customs Command, Mr Uche Ejesieme explained to the Nigerian Tribune.
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