Shipping industry protests over increased port levy
Sri Lanka’s shipping industry is up in arms against recent developments over the upper limit issued for delivery charges at the port of Rs. 6,000, protests against which have fallen so far on deaf ears of the Director General of Merchant Shipping (DGMS).
The industry says this unfair upper limit imposed on the shipping companies and freight forwarders has caused issues within the sector regarding the obtaining of delivery of their consignments arriving at the port for clearance.
The DG of Merchant Shipping Ajith Seneviratne issued the circular regarding the delivery order fees bearing number 1842/16 on April 25, 2014 with effect from April 30.
The industry claims that this was unreasonable, firstly due to the short time period and since it was overriding a previous gazette notification issued by the government stating that licences obtained by freight forwarders needed to be obtained while stating the amount charged as per the delivery fees.
At the time of issuing this gazette notification in 2011 there was no limit stipulated. But if there was a need to increase this fee then a special request was to be made.
When importing goods to the country a number of persons are involved prior to the final importer getting charge of the delivery. In this respect, the delivery order document issued enables the importer to obtain delivery from the port at Customs, for which a fee is levied. At the point of importation when a shipping company releases its good it would charge a particular fee and then the forwarder would take in the delivery paying this fee. Then a delivery order is issued to the importer to obtain charge of the delivery, and in view of cost recovery both the cost borne by the forwarder and the amount levied for the delivery order document would be charged from the importer.
However, with the new circular some shipping lines themselves had increased their fees to Rs.6000 causing problems for the industry when taking charge of the delivery order as the final amount levied would be higher than Rs.6000.
The industry noted that previously the charges ranged between Rs.3500 and Rs.4500 for a delivery order issued by an importer.
Moreover, this has resulted in some freight forwarders being called up by the DGMS regarding the higher charges levied for the delivery orders exceeding Rs.6000 due to complaints made by importers.
However, it was uncertain as to what action was taken up following these developments against the forwarders.
In the wake of these changes during the Shipping Cluster meeting with Treasury Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundere on June 23 this issue was raised. But since it was not the forum for a discussion on the subject, Dr. Jayasundere had requested DGMS Seneviratne to establish a working committee with all stakeholders to be a party to the meeting and reach a compromise.
But the industry notes that they had not received any response or feedback for their repeated requests from the DGMS to re-consider the decision or a meeting as called for by Dr. Jayasundera. Repeated attempts to obtain a comment from DGMS Seneviratne failed as his secretary informed the Business Times he was always in meetings and could not be contacted as they were unaware of his mobile phone number either.