Shipping companies, CRFFN meeting over freight forwarders strike ends in deadlock.

The meeting between  foreign shipping companies operating in the country and the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) to avert the planned withdrawal of service by freight forwarders ended Friday without any resolution of the contentious issues in the Shipping companies, CRFFN meeting.

Recall that freight forwarders had threatened to withdraw their services from the nation’s seaports over extortion and highhandedness by the shipping companies.

Among the concerns raised by the freight forwarders include depletion of container deposit refunds, detention invoice, deceitful demand of opening of importers account/ extortion before releasing invoice, undue debiting of importers, and transfer of containers against the wish, consent or approval of the consignee among others.

Speaking with journalists after the meeting which had in attendance representatives of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), National Coordinator of the NAGAFF 100% Compliance Team, Ibrahim Tanko, said one of the demands of the freight forwarders is for the shipping companies to grant 14-day demurrage free period on containers but they had insisted on waiving only six days.

According to him, the body language of the representative of the shipping company showed no commitment that they are ready to address their complaints.

He said, “We did not achieve anything from today’s (Friday) meeting so the issue of withdrawal of service is still pending and our position still stands, we will withdraw our service on November18 if nothing is done.

“One of our demands is that there is a need for the shipping companies to give us at least a grace of 14 days from the date the container goes out of the port, they should not charge us demurrage but the representative of the shipping companies said they can only waive six days. The problem now is are they going to start counting the six days from the day the container leaves the port or the day our dues expired? So, as it is now, there is no concrete agreement between us.

“On the container deposit issue, we lose a lot of money, N200,000 on a 40ft container and N100,000 on a 20ft container, and after losing this money, the shipping companies also debit us and they still receive their empty containers back. We are saying no to that because the issue of lack of holding bays and space at the terminals is no fault of ours. So why would they make us pay for it?”

Tanko, however, expressed confidence in CRFFN, Nigerian Shippers Council and NPA to resolve the issues with the shipping companies.

He said all the five accredited freight forwarders associations including NAGAFF and the Association of the Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) have agreed to work together to collectively address operational challenges confronting them at the ports.

“We all have agreed to work together to make sure that any issue that bothers us is deliberated upon before we take a position. We have all agreed that there is no more division between us especially NAGAFF and ANLCA because people are enjoying the division among us,” he said.