The Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) has suggested that the Customs collector should be given powers to specify legal surcharge to be levied by shipping companies on imports and exports.
This is the only way to save importers and exporters from the undue surcharges.
The Chairman Shipping and Multimodal Transport Committee of the Chamber Iftikhar Ahmed Sheikh in a letter to the Federal Communications Secretary stressed the need for emergent measures to control the monopoly of shipping companies and their agents and prevent them from levying undue and undesirable surcharges.
The Chamber Committee Chief urged the ministry to revive the Shipping Rate Advisory Board (SRAB) with representation of KCCI.
The board should make a rule that no shipping company or agent should work without a license to be issued on the recommendations of the Chamber.
He pointed out that in the absence of SRAB and ineffective control of Customs on shipping companies and agents and insufficient powers with the Director General Ports and Shipping there is no proper agency to save importers and exporters from the high handedness of these companies.
Any importer daring to question the legality of surcharges have to face the punishment in the form of delay in clearances of the goods resulting in heavy demurrage, he added.
Giving history of the creation of SRAB in February 2001 by the Communication Ministry through a notification Iftikhar Sheikh said that the functions of the board was to recommend, check and regularise matters relating to the working of shipping companies and the charges they may levy on importers and exporters for transportation and handing of goods.
Unfortunately the board could not make any progress as the influential shipping companies and agents probably manoeuvred deferring meetings of the board which gradually became a forgotten tale.
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