Dispute resolution: Shippers’Council recovers N2.3 billion for complainants in two and half years. 

The Council maintained that the amount does not include money recovered in foreign currencies.

The Deputy Director, Complaints Unit of the Council, Mr. Moses Olayemi Fadipe said this in an exclusive chat with our correspondent in his office, recently,

According to him, the unit receives more that 500 complaints every year but chooses to attend to the ones that are tenable while educating  complainants on some cases that have no substance.

In 2017, Fadipe said that the Council recovered money that have been taken or about to be taken in excess of more than N1 billion.

He added that its intervention on complaints brought before it in 2018 led to recovery of over N800 million apart from foreign currencies while it has recovered over N500 million so far in the first half of 2019.

He said, “Let me start from 2017, it is in excess of N1 billion back to complainants, we have in foreign currencies too dollars, pounds, Riyadh because they are foreign businesses whereby all those money are in foreign currencies.

“In 2018, as at the last computation, it is in excess of N800 million, in terms of foreign currencies they are not there.

“For the first half, we have seen an excess of N500 million already because that was the period we had gridlock and the cargo dwell time is increasing, a lot of delays and the rest.

“So as we speak, we are already in excess of N500 million.

“These are monies that have already been taken or about to be taken that we stopped from being taken. How do you explain it. I want to return my container, I cannot return it due to no fault of mine and the truck am using has now turned to holding bay.

“So who is to pay who? We stop such collection” he explained .

Speaking on the challenges, the Deputy Director explained that the staff of the unit are driven by passion for what they are doing.

The successes recorded from the complaints, according to him, encourage the staff.

“A company’s officer must have passion for what he is doing and must be dedicated and be unbiased regardless of whose ox is gored and whose face appears on that company’s platform.

“Even though it is challenging, the success aspect of it makes it more encouraging”,Mr Fadipe concluded.