Aggrieved users of SIFAX terminal may press for refund over royalty charges – Shippers’Council 

Funso Olojo       |           

Any importer or his agent who paid the controversial Royalty Charge before it was stopped  at the Ports and Cargo terminal has the backing of  the Nigerian Shippers’ Council to ask for a refund. 

Chief Cajethan Agu,  the Deputy Director,  Compliance and Monitoring , Shippers Council, made this assertion  last week Friday in Lagos. 

Agu, who was speaking on the interventionist role of the council between the shipping service providers and shippers,  disclosed that the mediatory role played by the industry regulator during the heated days when the Ports and Cargo terminal introduced the controversial charge led to its hasty withdrawal. 

It would be recalled that SIFAX Group, owners of Ports and Cargo terminal at Tin Can port recently introduced what it described as royalty charges on all outbound containers to off-dock facilities other than its own.

This resulted in an outrage among its customers who threatened to boycott the facility if the decision, which they described as illegal and unilateral, was not rescinded. 

According to the angry shippers, the terminal  charged  a new fee of N121,000 on 40-footer container and 63,000 on 20-footer container for any importer wishing to transfer his consignment to off-dock terminal other than  SIFAX off dock facilities.

Few weeks after the intervention by Shippers Council,  the charges were withdrawn.

But Chief Agu declared that despite the withdrawal,  customers who felt aggrieved could approach the council to lodge complaints and ask for refund from the terminal operator. 

“The Council on its own cannot ask Sifax for a refund of the illegal charges they collected from its customers if none of them comes forward with such request. 

“But the moment any of them approaches us with such request for refund,  we shall take it up with the terminal operator.

“We have made it clear during our discussion with Sifax that if any of its customers from whom this illegal charge was collected approaches the council to demand for a refund,  then the terminal operator will have no option than to make a refund” Chief Agu declared.

He explained that royalties can only be collected by the owner of an asset from the users of such asset based on agreement and percentage. 

According to him, it is only the Nigerian Ports Authority  (NPA) which statutorily by virtue of being  the owner of the quayside, can demand and get royalty from the terminal operators who are using the place concessioned to them by the port Authority. 

“But it is out of place for a terminal operator to collect royalty from its customers because such operator is not the owner of the space from where he is operating.

The Council’s Chief stated that SIFAX could not justify the legal reasons why they were collecting this charge which he said makes it illegal, adding that  was the reason they had to stop further collection.

“It even sounds more absurd to know  that such fee was charged on goods leaving their terminal to off-dock facilities “, Chief Agu noted.

He explained that if Sifax feels strongly about the need to introduce new charges or increase existing ones, he said there is a laid down procedure they can follow.

“They should write the council,  intimating it of their intentions. Then the council will set up a committee to look at such request, its legality and conformity to the extant rules of engagement and then come up with its recommendations.

“It is not what they can do  unilaterally.  If they want to increase or charge new fees, they must provide commensurate services,  that is part of the concession agreement. 

“If you cannot provide a commensurate service to the new charge you introduced,  then that is illegal. 

“That was the case with Sifax’s royalty charges “,he declared. 

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