KARACHI: The offshore cargo handling charges at the two ports of Karachi are extremely high and the government should take notice of this practice, Chairman KCCI’s Sub-Committee on Ports and Shipping Nasir Mehmood said.
Talking to Customs Today on Tuesday, he said the businessmen are persistently voicing their concerns over detention and demurrage charges due to delayed examination of containers, which has become an off-again-on-again problem at the on-dock terminals and yet they are squeezed far more by the off-dock terminators that have left on-dock terminals far behind by charging exorbitant charges.
For instance, the off-dock terminals are charging Rs 25,000 per tonne, a rate which works out to be about 200-time more than that charged by the KPT and over 25-time the rate charged by the KICT, PICT and QICT for a 40-feet container.
This and many other problems faced by the port users could only be solved by establishing an Authority to monitor and regulate the ports and shipping sector, he added.
