New NPA cargo dues come in for flak

Discussions with Saaff ongoing ALAN PEAT THE LATEST missive from the National Port Authority (NPA) on the submission of cargo dues documentation, applicable from July 15, has come in for criticism from some of its customers. The NPA letter, titled “penalties for late and non-submission of cargo dues and manifests” and sent by Nisha Jones, GM for trade, logistics and corporate affairs, is a detailed listing of the necessary timing for submissions and the associated penalties. Jones told FTW that the NPA had been negotiating these conditions with the industry bodies for some time, and that the time-frame they were proposing was “very lenient”. But at least two sections have come under fire. The first is the imposition of a R200 cancellation fee. Also attracting negative criticism is the paragraph under the section headed: “Non-submission of cargo dues orders (CDOs)”. This reads: “Where cargo documentation is submitted, whether timeously or not, and subsequently cancelled for whatever reason and resubmitted, interest/penalty charges if applicable will be levied from the date of the newly submitted order in addition to the cancelling fee of R200 per order.” In essence, said an FTW source, “this means that should an agent for any reason have to change a cargo dues order, although it might have been done timeously, passing the cancellation and the new CDO you will have to pay a penalty/interest as the CDO is now deemed to be passed late...plus of course the R 200. The contents of the Jones missive have been a matter of discussion for some months between the NPA and the SA Association for Freight Forwarders (Saaff), according to Dave Watts, Durban-based maritime adviser to the association. Given that the letter has just been released, Saaff is still examining it in detail. Jones told FTW that the NPA hadn’t shut up shop on the issue. “We’re open to discussions at all times,” she said. The penalties are not there just to penalise people in the industry, she added. “They are primarily intended to discourage lethargic behaviour in submitting documents on time,” Jones told FTW. “And we’ve allowed more than sufficient time for any of them to submit correct documentation – not long after the vessel has arrived or left, as is often the case.”