Vice President of the Ship-owners and Agents Association of Ghana (SOAAG), Adam Imoru Ayarna, has maintained that policies guiding service fees charged by shipping lines are agreed upon by importers and were not an illegality.
His assertion was informed by ongoing complaints from the shipping community regarding some payments made to shipping lines, which they [shippers] consider to be extortive and unapproved.
Importers have had to raise concerns about high demurrage charges, container detention fee, container maintenance fee and others, which has been assumed to be unregulated and illegal.
The Ghana Shippers Authority, which serves the interest of shippers, has had to come in to intervene on behalf of the Ghanaian shipper urging the shipping lines and their agents to reconsider those charges.
A council member of the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders (GIFF), Eddy Akrong, has even called for regulation in the form of a governance structure that would make sure unjustifiable charges imposed by shipping lines are eliminated.
But speaking as a panelist on the GPHA’s Eye on Port programme, Mr. Ayarna stressed that all those charges exist in the shipping industry across the world and that shipping lines were not deliberately shortchanging importers.
He said the shipping lines value the inputs of their customers, so importers or their representatives—the clearing agents—should commit to dialoguing with shipping lines to resolve some of these issues.
“We are here to resolve issues, so what we should do is contact the agents to address these issues as business people in the same industry.
At the end of the day the customs house agent is acting in the interest of the customer who has an agreement with the shipping line. It is upon the shipping line to abide by that agreement,” he expressed.
According to Imoru Ayarna, that approach will be far better than a call for a regulatory body interfering with the business relations of shipping lines and importers.
He continued by insisting that if there is no illegality, then dialogue should be the way to come to a favourable resolution.