The Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has issued an ultimatum of 21 days to members of the Shipping Association of Nigeria (SAN) to stop collection of shipping line agency charges or face industrial action.
The leading freight forwarding association said if the collection does not stop, its members will withdraw their services from the seaports.
ANLCA National President, Prince Olayiwola Shittu, yesterday at a joint meeting between the National Executive Committee (NECOM), Board of Trustees and Western Zone executives of the association held at the ANLCA National Secretariat, described the contentious shipping agency line charges as illegal.
ANLCA is not alone in the call for the withdrawal of the shipping agency line charge as Shittu read yesterday at the meeting from a letter signed by the association, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) and the Association of Registered Freight Forwarders Nigeria (AREFF) on the platform of Joint Freight Forwarding Associations Committee to the Shippers’ Association of Nigeria of the freight forwarding associations refusal to continue paying the charge.
He read: “We have severally complained of your illegal charge called shipping line agency charge or import service charge and instead of you to withdraw the illegal charge you have increased it without regard to the relevant authorities and stakeholders. We shall not accept this charge henceforth and ready to resist to the last end of the illegal charge and other charge. As the representative of the shipping line carrier in Nigeria you are simply agents to the carrier ship owners.”
Shittu said that the association’s threat to withdraw its services is not only on the shipping agency line charges but also due to “other anomalies in the ports.”
He said that Nigerian Shippers’ Council would be notified of the association’s intention and expects that the port regulator wades into the issue.
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