Foreign shipping firms make huge profits from Nigerian shippers’ – Stakeholders

By Godfrey Bivbere & Stella Christian

Participants at the recently concluded workshop on Shipping and Trade Facilitation held in Abuja have frowned at the exploitation of Nigerian shippers’ by foreign shipping companies operating in the country.

The participants noted that the continued exploitation of Shippers’ in the country is as a result of lack of proper regulation and implementation of current laws guiding shipping business in the country.

The workshop which was put together by the Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN) in conjunction with the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), urged that rate of return regulations should be enforced to ensure that the shipping companies do not make profit that is beyond acceptable limits.

They pointed out that most of the shipping companies’ charges are designed by the companies to exploit hapless shippers and are imposed amidst inefficiency, corruption etc. They further observed that unregulated and multiple charges constitute big problems facing Nigerian shipper (About 39 of them) and these have made trade unpalatable.

The participants therefore stressed that regulation is necessary in order to protect the weak from the strong and to ensure conformity of all interests in the shipping trade to established rules.

They opined that regulation of shipping is necessary because cargo is the most important factor in every trade transaction and therefore efficient regulation must operate in a statutory frame work and subject to independence, accountability, probity etc.

All shipping tariffs should be published and no hidden charges should be condoned while that NSC should expedite action to consolidate these charges in order to eliminate exploitative and unwanted ones, they noted.

They also explained that Shipping charges as published by the government following a committee recommendation in 1997 have not work because of litigators and therefore alternative dispute resolutions should be pursued to save time and cost.

They observed that Nigerian shippers are discouraged from pursuing legitimate claims arising from trade transactions as a result of not knowing how to go about it; the technicalities involved in documentation; follow-up costs, cases involving foreign jurisdictions and fraudulent practices by foreign partners .

The participants also identified the inability to pursue claims leads to abandonment of cargo with the consequence of diminished income, inflated bank charges, business failures etc.

They called on shippers’ to avail themselves of the opportunity provided by the Cargo Defense Fund (CDF) of the NSC that is available to help aggrieved shippers to pursue claims.