Stakeholders laud Shippers’ Council for interventions in trade disputes

Nigerian Shippers’ Council has received several letters of appreciation for its various interventions on behalf of Shippers, freight forwarders, shipping companies, exporters, truck owners among other stakeholders.

These letters are often written, signed and sent to The Council after the cases of complainants have been satisfactorily attended to and settled.

In the course of its intervention, the Council said it had helped to recover sums of money running into billions of naira for complainants aside foreign currencies saved for exporters.

Recall that the NSC is daily inundated with various complaints from complainants in the shipping, freight forwarding, terminal operations and several other subsectors of the maritime industry.

The Council said it receives nothing less than about 500 cases every six months but has to filter them by looking at the authenticity of the cases.

Chief among those that bring cases to the Council are the importers and mostly against the Shipping agencies.

 The cases mostly reported to NSC is the case of illegal charges by shipping lines in the name of demurrage closely followed by the terminal operators who spare nothing to slam charges on shippers not minding the factors responsible for what led to delay.

Few of the cases are between Nigerian buyers and their foreign clients who collect money but refuse to make supply of the goods they collect money for.

Billions in naira have been recovered for complainants and several other various sums in foreign currencies recovered for exporters in form of reduction in charges, refund of illegally collected charges among others.

Between January and June, 2019, the Complaints unit of the Council headed by a Deputy Director, Moses Olayemi Fadipe, has received over 500 complaints out of which 191 were found worthy to investigate.

In the course of the interventions, NSC has stopped funds taken or about to be illegally taken by people complained against.

The funds according to the Council are close to billions of naira annually.

In addition, the recovery of such funds have been made easy but for the support of the Chief Executive Officer of the Council, Barr. Hassan Bello who sometimes personally engages the complainants to find out their satisfaction with the way their cases were handled.

The CEO is also said to have provided the right ambience for the success of the job of the unit in charge of receiving and processing complaints brought to the organisation.

In an interview with the Deputy Director, in charge of Complaints Unit, Moses Olayemi Fadipe, he explains how the Council has been working behind the scene to recover illegal charges slammed on the complainants.

“You will now agree with me that the arbiter who is in the middle, is in a dilemma but i woukdnt see any much of challenge because there are rules and regulations guiding the industry and there are industry standards and there are services required by each stakeholder or party to carry out.

“Ours is to establish that there are infractions either on the part of the provider or on the part of the user to the extent we are able to determine that infraction and shows the extent to which we are going to seek necessary restitution from that party that is causing that infraction.

“You must be dedicated as the middle man and be unbiased no matter whose ox is bored or whose face appears on that company’s platform.

“Even though it is challenging, the success aspect of it makes it more encouraging.

“Within that period you are looking at, that we have 191 cases within six months, it is more than that. Within the six months, I can say it is not less than 500 cases but the 191 cases are the cases found worthy to investigate and go into because it is not all cases you bring to this desk we go into.

“We have to first look at the authenticity of your case probably you are ignorant of what you are asking for, we will quickly educate you and at that point too, we let you know whether you have a case or not.

“The 191 are the ones that we know they have cases and can comfortably and conveniently say we will give them the necessary restitution.

“Let me start from.2017, it is in excess of one billion naira back to complainants and we have in foreign currencies too. In dollars, pounds, Riyadh.

“There are many cases of exports we go into too whereby all those money are in foreign currencies.

“In 2018, because of some cases that have spilled over to 2019, as at our last computation, it is in  excess of N800 million. In terms of foreign currencies too, they are all there.

“And from the first six months of this year, 2019, we have seen an excess of N500 million already because this is the period we now have gridlock and the cargo dwell time is increasing. A lot of delays and the rest.

“These are money that have already been taken or about to be taken that were stopped from being taken

“They don’t call it bribe, they call it logistics support. Somebody will just come here and say I have come to appreciate you that you are making telephone calls and you are making that, please take this one. It abounds a lot. It is an everyday occurrence. May be because of the system we find ourselves, may be because that is what Nigerians believe in.

“I do say it and I will continue to say it that they have known over time that this is not a desk you will bring an envelope to.

“As I speak, people that have done it in the past will know we have done and they know the response.

“Again, none of my staff as we speak now will have that courage to take any envelope from anybody because they know when that happens, the person is gone for life, he will leave the system.

“I keep telling people that the era of greasing my palm to give you service has gone and that is why you see this particular unit did not wait for companies to cone In, we move ahead of them by way of going to commercial sections of terminal operators; shipping companies from time to time meeting people there to educate them and to find out their challenges.

“The issue of corruption in the system is a canckerworm,, it is an issue everyone’s job to take it up and make sure we free the system of corruption.

“The Chief Executive Officer has been a very active man and has been very supportive in terms of the working tools and the working environment.

“He gives free hands to exhibit dexterity on the job and that’s why the Complaints Unit reports directly to the CEO.

“The bureaucratic bottleneck is broken and direct authority from the highest level.

“It will interest you that my CEO sometimes calls complainants directly and it will take a long time before we get to know.

“He will say to the complainants that you complained to the Council, how has it been with your case and they will say it is fine. When they find out who is speaking, he will say Bello and some of them don’t know that he is the CEO.

“What I can say is that he is an humble man and that is one of the attributes of a good leader. He carries everybody along as a team. So, in that respect, I give it to him.

“It is not easy to be in between a complainant and the person who is being complained against because each party has his own vision that they maintain which they will at all times justify.”