ABUJA- The Nigerian Mari­time Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) have been called by the oil marketers, Depots and Pe­troleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria to obey the Federal Government’s di­rective on naira transactions for ports charges.

The Second Vice Chairman, of DAPPMAN, Mammod Tukur, who made the call in Lagos, stated that despite the directive of the government to NIMASA and NPA about a year ago, both agencies had yet to comply, according to a state­ment issued by the association.

In a communiqué signed by heads of the NMDPRA, NNPC, MOMAN and DAP­PMAN, in November 2021, the government, through its down­stream regulator, and based on agreement among stakehold­ers, directed that ports charges should be collected in naira.

But since last year, both NIMASA and NPA have con­tinued to collect the charges in dollars, according to DAP­PMAN.

“Some years ago the Vice President chaired a meeting which included the Chief of Staff, talking about the fact that marketers having to pay port charges to NPA and to NIMASA in dollars was no longer acceptable because it was affecting the sector.

“A directive was given that these agencies should hence­forth charge marketers in naira, but that has not been implemented. That’s a major challenge.

“The price of dollars is practically driven by demand. If there’s no supply, then ob­viously the price will rise. So in this instance, every time a vessel needs to berth, we have to pay port charges in dollars.”

Tukur added, “But we are saying that can be paid in nai­ra. That’s one way of actually taking demand (for dollars) out of the market and it will cool the forex effects.

“If these products are con­sumed locally and are destined for local ports, then why are the NPA and NIMASA charging in dollars?

“They should simply im­plement a directive given by the government and we can assure you that this will also bring down the price of petro­leum products.”

On its part, the Chairman, DAPPMAN, Winifred Akpani, explained how the foreign ex­change conundrum was affect­ing petroleum marketers.

“For example, to charter a vessel to convey 20,000 metric tonnes of PMS within Nigeria for 10 days, freight charges are denominated in dollars, which comes to about N220m at an official forex rate of N440 and a whooping N440m for petro­leum marketers who have to source forex from the parallel market at N880.

“This implies an additional cost of N11 per litre for this transaction due to the forex of­ficial/parallel market differen­tial. For this same transaction, Jetty fees, again charged in dol­lars, come to N15.4m at official forex rates and N30.8m for pe­troleum marketers who source from the parallel market.

“In the same vein, Jetty Berth is charged in dollars and comes to N2.2m at the of­ficial forex rate and N4.4m at the parallel market rate. Then there are port dues (NPA and NIMASA), which are charged in dollars, which come to offi­cial N71.51m at official forex rate and N142.796m for mar­keters who source forex from the parallel market.”

Akpani described it as quite burdensome and had made operational expenses and pro­curement increasingly difficult for DAPPMAN members.