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Nigeria's ICTN implementation frustrated by shipping lines: official

THE Director of Commercial Shipping Services of the Nigerian Shippers' Council, Dabney Shall-Holma, has accused international shipping companies of working to frustrate the implementation of the International Cargo Tracking Note (ICTN), otherwise known as Advanced Cargo Declaration, which came into effect earlier this month.

Mrs Shall-Holma pointed out that the international shipping lines, their agents in Nigeria and the Shipping Association of Nigeria (SAN) are creating disaffection among the organised private sector in Nigeria by promoting falsehood that ICTN will add to the cost of business.

She has insisted that the package comes at no additional cost to the shippers, importers and exporters. According to her, the ICTN cost is not borne by shippers, importers or exporters but the shipping lines, which she said are already charging Nigerians for it, according to The Sun News of Nigeria.

"It comes out of payments that are already collected or payable per consignment. Whether the Shippers' Council introduces cargo tracking note or not, shipping companies will continue to collect this taxation, which is the US$25 per container and all the other listings are expected to come from the already existing freight taxation collected by the shipping lines on Nigerian freight," she said.

Mr Shall-Holma further explained that the charges released in the document published by the Shippers' Council recently was meant to guide shipping lines and agencies in the preparation of their documents.

"They are trying to truncate the ICTN because they are the same shipping companies dealing with all the 18 countries in West and Central Africa implementing cargo tracking note and in those countries, they pay EUR65 per TEU and the lowest cost is EUR35.

"But here, we are charging $25 per TEU, which is less than a quarter of the EUR65 charged by other countries, but they are not worried about that because they know that Nigeria controls 75 per cent of the cargoes," she added.

Furthermore she said: "The issue of transparency is what is causing the problems here. They don't want you to know how much they are charging you per unit, but we are insisting it must be transparent. They know that once Nigerian trade is made transparent, they are in trouble because there are too many padded costs and add-ons that are not made obvious.

"The CTN in Nigeria is different from those being implemented in West and Central Africa. Ours is Advance Cargo Declaration that gives you a column where you must put the BAF (Bunker Adjustment Factor), CAF (Currency Adjustment Factor) and you must tell us what the surcharge is -whether is it GRI (General Rate Increase) which shipping companies do from time to time and they hide it."