Shippers Council Restructures Cargo Defence Fund to Accommodate Contributions from Shippers
NSC CEO
• Plans to boost CDF with expected judgment debt fund
By Francis Ugwoke
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has unveiled plans to restructure the Cargo Defence Fund (CDF) established years ago to assist shippers who have issues with their imports.
Under the fund, the NSC assists shippers with funds or legal representation to pursue litigations with overseas suppliers who failed to keep to the terms of trade agreement.
There have been cases of overseas suppliers who collected payments but failed to supply the goods or supplied poor quality goods to importers.
The fund has however been in a comatose state in the past few years.
However, in a chat with members of the League of Maritime Editors and Publishers during a visit, the Executive Secretary, NSC, Mr Emmanuel Jime, said the Council is considering re-establishing structure.
Noting that the arrangement has always been for the NSC to solely fund the CDF, Jime said this has to change with the shippers being part of the funding under a contributory arrangement.
He said the fund has been one in which people just felt it was a free fund since they don’t actually put anything in it.
He said it was this arrangement that has impacted negatively on the fund.
Jime also disclosed that there is also a concept developed by his predecessor, Mr Hassan Bello, that the judgment debt fund expected from the cases in court or out of court settlement would be used to start implementation of the CDF.
He said, “At the moment what we are doing is to re-establish the Cargo Defence Fund structure. The structure has not been there for a while, and when I came in, the briefing I had was that the shipping community actually did not fully participate in the process of establishing that Cargo Defense Fund. The understanding of the fund is that it is contributory sort of fund which means that shippers themselves….. it is like analogy of co-operative arrangement where you put in and in the time of need something is done for you. That is the concept of the Cargo Defence Fund. Now, the NSC earlier was taking the responsibility of running it without the contribution … I think people generally just like to feel that it is free fund that they can go and take from without actually putting anything in it. So, that affected the Defence Fund. But now, we are considering of an idea that part of the judgment debt of the matter that is in court now….. my predecessor had put in place a mechanism to see that once those funds were availed to us, then we would have actually created a funding using the availability of those funds to start implementation of Cargo Defence Fund.
“But for us to go forward, we cannot continue to sponsor it as NSC on our own. So, sensitization is what I am going to embark on now to make sure that the shippers themselves know that this thing is a contributory fund… and for it to be successful they have to be ready to also make an input to it”.
By Francis Ugwoke
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has unveiled plans to restructure the Cargo Defence Fund (CDF) established years ago to assist shippers who have issues with their imports.
Under the fund, the NSC assists shippers with funds or legal representation to pursue litigations with overseas suppliers who failed to keep to the terms of trade agreement.
There have been cases of overseas suppliers who collected payments but failed to supply the goods or supplied poor quality goods to importers.
The fund has however been in a comatose state in the past few years.
However, in a chat with members of the League of Maritime Editors and Publishers during a visit, the Executive Secretary, NSC, Mr Emmanuel Jime, said the Council is considering re-establishing structure.
Noting that the arrangement has always been for the NSC to solely fund the CDF, Jime said this has to change with the shippers being part of the funding under a contributory arrangement.
He said the fund has been one in which people just felt it was a free fund since they don’t actually put anything in it.
He said it was this arrangement that has impacted negatively on the fund.
Jime also disclosed that there is also a concept developed by his predecessor, Mr Hassan Bello, that the judgment debt fund expected from the cases in court or out of court settlement would be used to start implementation of the CDF.
He said, “At the moment what we are doing is to re-establish the Cargo Defence Fund structure. The structure has not been there for a while, and when I came in, the briefing I had was that the shipping community actually did not fully participate in the process of establishing that Cargo Defense Fund. The understanding of the fund is that it is contributory sort of fund which means that shippers themselves….. it is like analogy of co-operative arrangement where you put in and in the time of need something is done for you. That is the concept of the Cargo Defence Fund. Now, the NSC earlier was taking the responsibility of running it without the contribution … I think people generally just like to feel that it is free fund that they can go and take from without actually putting anything in it. So, that affected the Defence Fund. But now, we are considering of an idea that part of the judgment debt of the matter that is in court now….. my predecessor had put in place a mechanism to see that once those funds were availed to us, then we would have actually created a funding using the availability of those funds to start implementation of Cargo Defence Fund.
“But for us to go forward, we cannot continue to sponsor it as NSC on our own. So, sensitization is what I am going to embark on now to make sure that the shippers themselves know that this thing is a contributory fund… and for it to be successful they have to be ready to also make an input to it”.
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