Maritime Lawyers Condemn Shipping Companies for Demanding $50 Per Export Documentation Automation
By Francis Ugwoke
Maritime lawyers have risen in sharp condemnation of the demand by multi-national shipping lines for $50 per documentation in the current move by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) to ensure automation in export documentation process.
The apex bank last year involved the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC) in the automation process for export documentation.
The Council, it was gathered, was to organise the shipping agencies, among others, to be part of the training for export documentation automation.
SHIPPING DAY gathered that the shipping companies said the automation process would require additional manpower and equipment costs, which is their reason for asking for $50 fee.
But our source said that the shipping companies could not provide any details as to how uploading already issued B/L’s will result into additional costs as being claimed.
The source added that from the onset of the training programme, many of the shipping lines did not show enough interest by way of participation in the exercise.
The source also said they equally failed to demonstrate this during the four stakeholders meetings held with them.
According to our source, what is clear appears to be a demonstration of plans to frustrate the export documentation automation exercise.
According to our source, Trade Monitoring System (TMS) of the CBN for which directive was given is an online platform that seeks to automate all of Nigeria’s Foreign Exchange forms.
These forms include Form NXP, Form M, Form A, Form NCX etc with the automation planned in phases beginning with the Form NXP which has been completed and was launched on October 31st 2019.
The automated eForm NXP will improve the processes involved in the shipment of goods and services out of Nigeria while reducing the processing time of export documents to a single day, the source explained.
The source explained, “Additionally, automating the form NXP will eliminate incidences of what is commonly referred to as “unutilized form NXP’s” where NXP’s are opened but there’s no evidence that the transaction has actually been consummated and hence no proceeds from the transaction will be recorded. This was what prompted the CBN to issue a circular in 2017 directing Shipping Companies in Nigeria to ensure that all export Bills of Lading must carry the form NXP number for the cargo”.
The eForm NXP is specifically to correct the discrepancies in export data reported by different agencies of government thereby guaranteeing their authenticity.
Reacting to the demand of the shipping companies to pay $50 documentation fee for export, a maritime lawyer who did not want to quoted said it was surprising that the shipping companies should descend so low with such demand.
He described the demand as of no basis, adding that all the shipping companies were expected to do was to log on to the platform and upload Bills of lading corresponding to the eForm NXP completed by the intending exporter of the cargo.
“The demand has no basis. All the shipping companies are expected to do is log on to the platform and upload Bills of lading corresponding to the eForm NXP completed by the intending exporter of the cargo”, he told SHIPPING DAY.
Another maritime lawyer, Mr. Kasa Opara, said the demand for $50 fee was absurd since in the first place they remain carriers of these cargoes.
“Exporters pay terminal charges to the shipping companies and so they should not be demanding payment for automation of documentation. It is like asking you or somebody to pay before a receipt is given. It is not fair. It is absolutely wrong for them to make such demand”, Kasa said.
He called on the federal government to take appropriate action to compel the shipping companies comply with the CBN directive.
He said that multi-national shipping companies have always treated policies introduced by Nigerian government or its agencies with disregard.
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