By Bampia James Bundu
Deputy managing director of Bollore African Logistics, the management handling the affairs of the Freetown Terminal, has blamed delays in clearing of containers from the Queen Elizabeth II Quay on African Link Company.
Bertrand Kerguelen said the clearing agency was responsible for the management of that department.
“We have the equipment to work fast, our only challenge is the scanning department managed by African Link Company, which is causing a lot of delays in scanning containers”, he said. He added that they usually would complete the loading process of containers before midday on each day, and claimed that they had to wait hours for the scanning department to complete their part of the process.
Talking to journalists during a conducted tour of the terminal and its facilities, Kerguelen explained that when his company took over the operations of the port in 2010 they inherited “absolutely nothing”. He explained that they had to start from “scratch”, adding that that had not been an easy task.
He said for their operations to be swift and smooth they had ordered in “brand new ultra-modern equipment like Mobile Harbor Crane that will offload or load about 20 containers per hour and can carry up to 100 tones, 9 Reach Stackers, 14 Tug Masters and 3 heavy duty forklifts, all to enable the smooth operations of the port”.
He said they also paved about 34,000 square meters of the floor space for their equipment to operate properly and orderly. He assured that they were doing all they could to ensure that containers were handled faster than ever before. He said they had succeeded to transform the terminal to meet international standards.
The company’s human resource manager, Claurinda Morgan, stated that the company had employed over 300 Sierra Leoneans, adding that their minimum wage was Le 600,000 with medical and other facilities.
She added that the welfare of their staff was paramount. Morgan explained that they had sent their staff for national and international training in order to build their capacities to meet set operational standards. She said they had also trained locals to take over the company’s management in future, adding that they had seven local managers so far.
ThroughCharlie Oldfields, his information processing supervisor,the African Link manager, Ekoh Haford, said: “we are not in the position to make any statement on the issues. Whatever clarifications you may want to get, go to the destination inspection secretariat at the ministry of trade, as they will talk to you on our behalf”.
The destination supervisor, Gibril Bangura, explained that the delay in clearing goods and service provision at the Queen Elizabeth Quay II was not caused by African Link nor was it the scanning machine. He blamed the importers, shipping agencies and clearing and forwarding agencies for the delays in clearing containers from the port.
Mr. Bangura disclosed that the role of African Link was to classify, verify, assess and validate goods upon which duties are taxes are being collected by customs, adding that the delays had only occurred when documents submitted by agents were not correct or when the agents had tried to under value their containers so as to cheat on government.
“If the documents are correct, classification and valuation certificate (CVC) can be offered to the agent within 24 hours by African Link”, he said. He said the scanning machine would take about 1minute 12 seconds to scan one container, adding that to stop the delays in clearing containers would require collective efforts of all agencies.
Abdul Akim Bangura, chairman for the association of clearing and forwarding agencies, explained that their role was to serve as liaison between importers, exporters and government agencies. He said it was impossible for agents to delay clearing containers.
“We are not being paid by government. We make money due to the amount of containers we clear per day. The more containers we clear the more money we make”, he said, pointing out that their major problem was the scanning system, the revenue collecting authority and attitude of government workers towards their jobs.
He, however, admitted that they had in some cases received complaints from other line agencies about clearing agents undervaluing goods.“That is bad and all institutions have their own bad eggs and we are not an exception. We will do all we can to do our work professionally”, he said.
President of the importers’ association, Tanue Jalloh, explained that their role was to import containers into the country and that they had worked in line with other agencies to clear containers.
He denied allegations that importers “under invoiced” their goods. He said much as that was wrong, they never had any proof that importers were guilty of under valuing their goods to evade tax.
“People make baseless accusations at times without any evidence to prove their claims”, he said.
Mr. Jalloh, however, revealed that they were not responsible for the delays in clearing containersas they too had in fact sufferedfrom the same delays. Corporate affairs manager at the National Revenue Authority, Mohamed Bangura, said that his institution was among others involved in ensuring that containers were cleared from the port.
He explained that their role in clearing containers would startafter the clearing agents would have submitted their CVC document to them and was being imputed into the ASYCUDA system for verifications.
“If all the documents are correct we can allow the agent to go ahead and pay their duties and clear their containers”, he said, adding that they could only delay agents if their documentsdid not tally with what they had in the ASYCUDA system or proper verifications were not done.
(C) Politico 21/10/14
