Truckers slam high fees in Manila port
Credit to Author: TYRONE JASPER C. PIAD| Date: Mon, 20 May 2019 16:17:30 +0000
Truckers are dismayed over what they deemed as excessive and unnecessary fees being collected from them by shipping companies in the port of Manila.
In an interview recently, Confederation of Truckers Association of the Philippines, Inc. (CTAP) Director Maria Zapata complained against shipping lines that charge detention fees despite the latter’s inability to provide space for empty containers.
A detention fee is the penalty for truckers who fail to return the empty containers to the shippping lines’ container yards within 72 hours after leaving the port for delivery. It ranges from P500 to
P1,000 a day per container, she said.
Shipping lines do not specify in the delivery order the locations where the containers should be returned, preventing the truckers to meet the 72-hour window, Zapata pointed out.
“Normally, and the practice that they are doing, is they are not putting a specific place where to return the empty [containers] because pretty well, they know there is not enough space,” she said.
As truckers wait for available space in the container yard, detention fees accumulate to the disadvantage of trucking companies, she said.
Zapata also wondered why they have to pay more fees when these are supposedly covered by the container deposits collected by the shipping lines. “This is corruption,” she said.
Meanwhile, a food raw material importer that refused to be named complained it was fined P6 million by a shipping line after storing 40 empty containers somewhere else for 70 days instead of returning them to the latter’s congested container yard.
The importer also cried foul when the shipping firm refused to release 20 of its new incoming shipments unless it makes a P2-million downpayment for the total fine and another P140,000 for demurrage fee.
It said the heavy penalties were uncalled for because there are shipping lines that waive the fines in consideration of the problem on congestion at the port. The importer also said the problem could have been avoided had authorities implemented the Joint Administrative Order (JAO) on port regulations.
Putting the JAO in effect is seen to decongest the port. It will allow shipments to be transported across the Batangas and Subic ports, providing additional shipping options besides the Manila port.
However, the release of the order was delayed to make way for further review of shipping rates, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said earlier.
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