Vincent Toritseju
Lagos — The Shipping Association of Nigeria, SAN, has said that the port arbitrary charges that shipping companies are accused of collecting are actually collected by government agencies.
Speaking to Newsmen in Lagos, Chairman of SAN, Boma Alabi said that these charges are collected by the Shipping companies and passed on to the relevant agencies.
Boma challenged the trading public to find out where these monies go to after collection adding that the shipping companies are just carrying out orders of as stipulated by law.
She said: “I want to find where these monies go to and you will see whether it is actually my members who are imposing these charges on us or it is the government agencies. Where is the money going to.
“And that will largely answer that question, why are there so many charges, Nigeria is one of the most expensive place to export from and remember these charges impact on our exports as well.
“Our ports are revenue driven, they have targets which they have to bring in to the government. Is that the most efficient way to run the ports.
“These are some of the questions we the Nigerian public should be asking, so inefficiency, high charges does not rest with SAN. If I collect the charges because this is what the regulator has asked me to do, I will collect it and pass it on to whoever it is that has the regulation in place.
“What I can tell you is that freight charges are not country specific, it is decided based on central issues and so no shipping line is going to target Nigeria and make Nigeria more expensive than other place.
“I had already said that these charges are not imposed by us, there are charges that are imposed by the regulators and those who run the ports and our duty is to make that these monies are collected and given to them.
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