Shipping Charges: NSC, Terminal Operators Move Close to Settling Dispute
By Francis Ugwoke
The face-off between the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC) and Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria, STOAN , is as good as over, SHIPPING DAY can report.
This indication emerged last weekend during a dinner party organized by the NSC at Intercontinental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos to appreciate stakeholders for a good business year.
Although, no formal pronouncement has been made clearly on this for obvious reasons, the leadership of NSC and STOAN demonstrated in their words and body language that the matter is over.
SOAN President, Princess Vicky Haastrop gave an indication that her association will cooperate with the NSC in its statutory regulatory obligation.
Haastrop spoke glowingly of the Executive Secretary of NSC, Mr Hassan Bello and how the two had met informally on what was apparent to resolve the issues between the ports regulator and the STOAN.
Bello had also confirmed how the two have been holding informal meetings specifically for the purpose of settling the case between the two out of court.
STOAN and the Association Shipping Lines Agencies, ASLA had dragged the NSC to court when the latter reversed the storage charges collected by the terminal operators and equally increased the free storage at the ports from three to seven days.
The Council had equally descended on the shipping lines and reduced their shipping line agency charges (SLAC) and made them to refund container deposits within a space of 10 days.
The Council said the idea was to position the ports in line with what obtains within the West and African sub-region.
But the service providers moved swiftly to stop the regulator by taking the matter to court, questioning the powers of the Council to carry out such action.
However, the service providers were floored in the Federal High Court as well as Appeal Court before they decided to go to the Supreme Court.
In the Appeal Court, the service providers were ordered to stop collecting SLAC.
The Appeal Court also ordered that the appellants should give account of what they collected from 11 years ago till date to the Shippers’ Council.
Apart from this, the appellants are also to make the refund with 21 percent interest per annum since 2006.
It was gathered that there have been efforts by industry stakeholders for the case between the two should be settled out of court.
What is however considered a thorny issue could be the terms of settlement considering the judgment of the court which is not just on stopping the collection but also on refunding what they collected in the past 11 years with 21 percent interest rate.
But Bello had in an interview said the Council is not so much interested in the punitive measures but in ensuring that the procedures and processes are obeyed by all service providers.
He said, “ We in NSC are more interested in establishing a machinery for objective tariff structure rather than some punitive issues actually. It is important that our tariffs are considerably competitive with tariffs in other neighbouring ports especially those ports we are competing with. All NSC is saying is not adverse to raising tariffs or lowering them for that matter, but there are procedures. And these procedures are entrenched in the Nigerian laws, so all we are saying is that you are operating in a clime of laws. Nigeria is country of laws, so please, come and abide with the laws of this country”.
It is expected that there will be a formal announcement of out court settlement with the SOAN and ASLA withdrawing their cases from the court.
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