Shippers’ Council registration policy dead on arrival —Truckers

Haulage operators under the aegis of the Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO) have warned that the new registration policy of the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), if intended to shore up Federal Government revenue profile, is dead on arrival.

Speaking exclusively to the Nigerian Tribune, Chairman of AMATO, Chief Remi Ogungbemi stated that the maritime industry is already over flooded with similar levies and charges under different names and nomenclature.

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According to Chief Remi Ogungbemi, “I am yet to know what the Shippers Council intends to do with the money they are clamping on stakeholders under the name ‘registration fee’. The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) already charges truckers and haulage firms similar amount for stickers, which is also a form of registering trucks that come into the ports to do business. If what the NSC is introducing is a duplication of what NPA is doing, then that policy is dead on arrival.

“I am shocked that the NSC is introducing such a policy given the present economic situation in the country. I am the more shocked because in recent past, the Shippers Council has been the advocate against any policy that will add to the cost of doing business in the port. How they come up with this Registration Policy, I really don’t know.

“We at AMATO are waiting to learn more about the new Registration Policy of the NSC. If the policy will add value to the way truckers come in and out of the port, maybe we might consider it; but if the policy is just another means of shoring up the revenue base of the Federal Government, then it is dead on arrival.

“Government has always clamoured for measures to reduce the cost of doing business in the ports, so the rationale behind this policy of the NSC is still unknown to us. If it is to increase government’s revenue base, then we will not accept it.”

It will be recalled that the NSC had introduced a Registration Fee which contained annual payment for all port users. A breakdown of the registration fee released by the NSC showed that shipping line agencies are expected to pay a registration fee of N100,000 per annum; cargo consolidators N20,000; dry port operators N50,000; freight forwarders and clearing agents N10, 000; haulage firms N10,000; inland container depot operators N50,000; off dock terminal operators N20,000; seaport terminal operators N100,000; shippers N1,000; shippers associations N5,000; stevedoring companies N20, 000; and warehouse operators N20,000.