FREIGHT forwarding companies using Dar es Salaam Port are up in arms over what they termed as ‘sluggish’ cargo handling by Tanzania International Container Terminal Services (TICTS), causing them unnecessary delays.
TICTS has been contracted to manage the container handling activities at the port and the Inland Container Depots at Kurasini and Ubungo.
Tanzania Freight Forwarders Association (TAFFA) told the ‘Daily News’ over the weekend that the ongoing efforts to revitalise the port could be derailed if things not improved.
TAFFA’s Secretary General Tony Swai explained that they have listed number of flaws that needed immediate solutions for making the services at the TICTS more efficient.
Among others, Mr Swai said the company has failed to implement the agreement reached by all stakeholders that requires it to adopt 24/7 working arrangement in a move to avoid congestion at the port, but currently it works in less than 10 hours a day.
The freight forwarding agents are also aggrieved by the delays when their cargos are supposed to go through the physical verification by the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) before being released from the depot.
“To have your cargo for verification alone can take at least three days while you only have seven days as grace period to clear your cargo, something, which leads us to incur storage charges,” he complained.
He asked: “If they are overwhelmed by the backlog due to limited space why don’t they surrender some of the consignments to be stored within the port instead of embracing monopoly?”
Furthermore, he said, the clearing and forwarding agents have been facing inconveniences due to absence of bank services at the TICTS offices, a situation which has been forcing them to travel about four kilometres to the bank for payments on services offered by the latter.
In quick rejoinder, TICTS Chief Executive Officer Mr Jared Zerbe said the company’s objective was to ensure a smooth process for its customers, noting that delays have been caused by an increase of number of local containers booked to 100 per day currently from the previous 30 containers.
The increase was a result of implementation of new dry port regulations related to nomination of local containers to Inland Container Depots (ICD’s) under port extension mode.
On the issue of introducing bank services at their office, he explained that they were working towards automat-ing the whole process, thus they no longer see the com-pulsion to locate a bank at their premises.
Mr Zerbe further trashed claims raised over 24/7 working arrangement, saying their terminal’s opera-tions have always complied with the 24/7 working ar-rangement -- with the exception of the payment process.
Recently, President John Magufuli ordered a review of the contract the Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) had entered with the TICTS following shortfalls in the doc-ument as established in the Controller and Auditor Gen-eral (CAG) report.
Back in April this year, the CAG tabled in Parliament his 2014/15 Audit Report of the public entity and others, listing a number of deficien-cies in the contract and suggested that the government should review the TICTS lease agreement with a view to ensuring that public interests are protected therein.
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