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BESIDES
adding to the already high costs of doing business in
the Philippines, newly imposed fees on containerized
shipments have been inefficiently collected, adding
another bureaucratic layer at the Bureau of Customs (BOC),
according to freight forwarders and other port users.
Sources
from the Port Users Confederation Inc. said the bureau
has been requiring them to split their container fee
payments into two—75 percent in one window and 25
percent in another—and this creates long queues and
introduces another layer in clearing and shipping goods
at the agency.
Three-fourths of the fees will be allotted for Chinese
loans used to purchase the scanning equipment, and the
remaining one-fourth will be used to maintain the
machines, as indicated by an earlier Malacañang order.
Importers fork out $25 and $50 for each 20-foot and
40-foot container respectively. Meanwhile, exporters
have been exempted from paying the fee.
The
seven bonded collecting officers in the Port of Manila
and two at the Manila International Container Port, are
insufficient to handle the number of the fee
transactions alone.
The BOC
has been “implementing so many policies which we are
paying for without the appropriate service,” the
forwarders said at a forum sponsored by the Aircargo
Forwarders Association of the Philippines last week.
Meanwhile, lawyer Julito Doria, chief of the
nonintrusive scanning project, said Customs is eyeing a
partnership with accredited banks such as the
state-owned Land Bank of the
Philippines
and the Lucio Tan-controlled Philippine National Bank to
address the long queues.
However,
port users remain divided on the issue of the container
fees, which the bureau started collecting last month.
Some say they can handle the cost as long as it does not
entail another bureaucratic layer, but others claim the
fee is “simply too high” and will surely increase the
price of imported goods. |
