Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) will auction overstayed cargo at Inland Container Depot Nairobi (ICDN) and Peripheral Storage Facilities (PSF) that were leased to accommodate overstayed cargo. Customs Warehouse List that was made through a public notice identifies 74 lots of assorted commodities to be sold on 26th February this year.
The auction will be held at the ICDN and interested bidders will view the goods on 24th and 25th February, details of which are listed in a public notice published on the taxman’s website.
To ease congestion at the ICDN, Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) has leased for storage areas where goods that have stayed for over 21 days are moved. The KPA has leased PSF from Mitchell Cotts, Nairobi Inland Container Terminal (NICT), Regional Logistics and Makongeni. By close of last month, the four PSF were holding 1742 Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUS).
The issue of overstayed cargo at the port came to limelight last year when the small traders complained of stringent clearing measures a multi-agency team had put in place to curb the entry of counterfeit goods in the country. Several containers were still stuck at ICD even after the President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered for their clearance.
Small traders who had claimed to have at least 1,000 containers with consolidated goods had asked for intervention from the President after they ran into clearance problems from various agencies. The then Trade and Industrialisation Cabinet Secretary Peter Munya said 125 containers had no known.
The problem of overstaying the goods is connected to the nature of the business of small traders who go to China to buy goods and reportedly use proxies who pose as clearing agents who either swindle them or take long before paying the requisite fees to clear cargo.
Other importers first import the cargo and then look for financing to clear the goods and pay duties, which may backfire when the demurrage charges accrue to an unmanageable level in case of delaying in securing the funds, a move that forces them to abandon the overstayed cargo.
Since last year, there has been extra vigilance for consolidated cargo as it presents a massive inspection challenge to port authorities who have blamed such importers for mis-declaring cargo, tax evasion and smuggling of counterfeits.
Importers are required to clear the goods within the four free storage days, after which they pay storage charges to KPA. After 21 days, goods that have not been entered or removed are moved to the Customs Warehouse.
Thereafter, if they are not removed within 30 days, then the Customs Warehouse keeper, KRA, give a notice that unless those goods are removed within 30 days of the day of notice they shall be deemed abandoned and therefore eligible for auction.
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