April 27, 2018

The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) is to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with shipping companies to find a sustainable way of solving disputes in the maritime industry.

Mr Hassan Bello, the Executive Secretary of the NSC, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Friday.

According to him, the agreement will look into the tariffs that currently exist and if the memorandum is signed, it will have positive impact on the maritime industry.

“We act on complaints we received from shippers generally.

“Shippers said the container deposit regime is extremely harsh and through no fault of shippers, they are made to pay demurrage.

“So, it is important we look at the operations of shipping companies and even if you take container deposits, it should be returned within four days so that freight forwarders will continue with their business.

“We are going to work in the long run to abolish container deposits,” the executive secretary said.

The NSC boss said there was need to look into the whole container deposit’s regime and the issue of specific regulations to enable the operations fall in line with international best practices.

Bello said the council had embarked on periodic engagement with stakeholders to ensure all the port operators keyed into the Ease of Doing Business initiative of government.
He said if all the stakeholders keyed into the Federal Government’s initiative on Ease of Doing Business, Nigeria could have good rating by the World Bank.

Bello said rating Nigeria high by the World Bank would attract more investors to the country and this would consequently reduce unemployment.