Nigerian Maritime360, 19th April,2020
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) have been commended for securing demurrage waivers for importers covering the lockdown period arising from the deadly covid-19 pandemic.
The Shippers Association Lagos State (SALS), President, Reverend Jonathan Nicol, gave the commendation in a chat with our correspondent in Lagos recently.
Nicol said that the lockdown made it impossible to pay Customs duties as expected even as he said that banks too were shut down saying there was gross limitation on shippers to do the necessary clearing processes.
He said, “Shippers should not be sanctioned for a situation that is no fault of theirs. The period of demurrage’s has no distinction. Rather, the Government gave the incentive as palliative for shutting down our businesses for 1 month. Amount of losses is more than 5 trillion Naira.
“We appeal to the Nigerian Shippers’ Council to prevail on Standards Organization and NAFDAC to emulate the Nigerian Ports Authority by waiving their handling charges on cargo for the period of battling the dreaded Covic-19 pandemic.
“Their offices were shut as well. We salute the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, the Council of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria and the Freight Forwarders for their sacrifices and continued monitoring of Ports activities during this period.
Nicol further charged all port users to come together to make the ports environment enviable by doing the right things always.
