Owing to the withdrawal of services by clearing agents operating at the Tin Can and PTML, over N480 million may have been incurred by importers as demurrage and storage charges in the last one week, Shipping Position Daily has reported.
It would be recalled that clearing agents operating at the Tin Can and PTML recently withdrew their services over the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) valuation policy that was introduced by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).
As reported by the publication, following the strike action embarked upon by the clearing agents starting from last week Monday, about 6000 vehicles are currently trapped at the Ports and Terminal Multiservice Limited (PTML) and Five Star Logistics .
As a result, vehicles importers have reportedly accumulated huge storage charges, as vehicles cannot be cleared out of the two RoRo terminals at Tin Can ports.
According to information obtained from the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), four vessels with over 8,000 vehicles are expected to berth at the two ports between Wednesday last week and today (Monday). The four vessels are: Paglia, Grande Sierra Leone, Grande Cotonou, and Grande Cameroon. They were expected to berth at the PTML between February 24th and 28th.
Shipping Position Daily correspondent, who spoke with a member of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA); Mr Sobola Salaudeen, was told that PTML and Five Star Logistics charge N5,000 on each vehicle for the first five days it stayed in the terminal, while N10,000 is charged daily for vehicles that stayed between six to 10 days and N15,000 charged daily for vehicles between 11 to 15 days.
This was corroborated by other clearing agents, who also acknowledged that the burden of demurrage and storage fees to terminal operators await them.
It was gathered that PTML has over 10,000 units of vehicles while Five Star Logistics Terminal has the capacity to receive over 5000 units of vehicles.
Meanwhile, clearing agents have vowed to continue their protest until the Customs Service yields to their demands of not using Internet-generated value to determine the duty payable on imported vehicles.
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