Portnet hits undervalued cargoes

Consultants check wharfage, and find big discrepancies, writes Alan Peat WHILE EVERYONE hopes that ad valorem wharfage is entering its twilight months, Portnet is wielding a last-minute club over undervalued, maximum value cargoes, according to disgruntled members of the forwarding community. This as the port authority division (PAD) appoints a private sector closed corporation (CC) to check import and export wharfage entries passed by individual companies and forwarders - and they tot up good scores in hitting undervalued cargoes for up to double the difference between correct and incorrect harbour tonnages. The forwarders also suggest that much of this may be the port operations division (POD) indulging in retribution after numbers in the industry, and some importers and exporters, employed a group of ex-Portnet staff as commission agents in auditing for overpaid wharfage. And they, in their turn, "got back some large sums of money", according to an industry source. So, FTW was told, Portnet has "tightened the screws" - and is now levying fees and fines where it claims cargoes are undervalued. That's for mis-declaration. But - even if you think you're right in your declared harbour tonnages - if you don't have the appropriate documentation to prove your case, you will be automatically debited at "maximum value". Another complaint from forwarders is that - if you're arguing about the likes of alleged mis-declaration or the automatic debiting - you only have 14-days in which to prove your claim. Too short a time, they say, to get the necessary proof of harbour tonnage from overseas suppliers. SAAFF (SA Association of Freight Forwarders) has just had a meeting with Portnet on this score. The best they've got, according to SAAFF's Des Mooney of Heneways, is that Portnet has suggested that the 14-day deadline to contest the finding "is not cut-and-dried". "You'll get debited," he told FTW, "but, if you prove them wrong, you can get re-imbursed." But another worry remains. Portnet's band of bounty hunting auditors has every right to check back on declared wharfages for two years. And, if a forwarder gets hit for a client's mis-declaration in that period, "he's got no hope in hell of getting his money back from the client after that sort of time", FTW was told by one. But Portnet rejected the forwarders accusations. It's only them raising the revenue that is rightly due to them, according to PAD executive manager, Marius Joubert. And, never mind the technicalities, he suggested, an awful lot of blatant mis-declarations have been uncovered in this latest Portnet/private sector money raising exercise.