JEDDAH: Importers in Saudi Arabia have criticized the Jeddah Port Authority for damaging goods during vessel unloading, as well as for lengthy customs clearance procedures. Now this situation compelling them to thinking seriously about having their consignments shipped to a Gulf port instead of Jeddah in order to avoid the losses they continue to incur every time they ship their goods to the city.
Abdulrahman Al-Ghamdi, businessman, said this is not the first time he has sustained financial losses because of the negligence of the company with which the port works to unload goods from the containers.
He said: “The company workers don’t care about the contents of the containers and some of these containers have fragile goods.
“I lost a lot of money once because the port’s workers broke all glass items in the consignment coming from Turkey.”
He claimed many businessmen like him suffer as a result of negligence and they do not know where to go or whom to talk to when their goods get damaged.
Unfortunately, this is not the only problem at the port, he added. “Actually, the clearance measures can take several weeks, which is too much time.”
Ayed Al-Siraji provides customs clearance services. In his opinion, the delay can be attributed to the fact that the port does not use state-of-the-art clearance equipment and this causes delays that can run for up to 20 days.
Some clearance officials also fail to process the goods on time, he said. Discussing damage caused to goods during unloading, he said the company in charge of this task should compensate businessmen for any damage caused to goods.
Muhammad Al-Dhahri, member of the customs clearance committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, says some goods are not cleared quickly because of their nature.
Some commodities get cleared fast while some are delayed by customs officials.
As for damage caused to goods, he said the businessman’s insurance company should provide damage assessment and a picture of the damaged container should be taken.
