Saturday, October 06, 2007 Proposal to increase PPA fees welcomed By Carlo P. Mallo
A PROPOSAL by the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) to increase the annual permit and regulatory fees by 67.39 percent has been overwhelmingly welcomed by its stakeholders.
The last increase in the fees was way back in 1997.
"It has been 10 years since PPA implemented Memorandum Circular 07-97 issued in March 4, 1997 for the standardized fees for these services," PPA PMO-Davao port manager Christian Santillan said in an interview Friday.
Through a unanimous vote, PPA stakeholders recently endorsed the new rate adjustment for ancillary services permit and regulatory fees.
In a public hearing held on September 19 at the PPA conference room of the Port Management Office-Davao, service providers approved PPA's proposal to increase annual permit fees and annual regulatory fee to P500 and P2,500 from the existing P300 and P1,500, respectively.
Other government panelists include representatives from the Department of Trade and Industry 10 Lucky Siegfred Balleque, National Economic Development Authority 11 Miguel Herrera III, and Maritime Industry Authority 11 Virgilio Armonia.
"Government regulatory bodies like PPA should attune their rates with thetimes in order to continually provide responsive and quality services and the increase is actually minimal compared to what the private sectors have imposed for the last 10 years," Balleque said during the deliberation.
Ancillary services refer to Type I and Type II classified business/operations within government and registered private ports of the PPA.
These complement the port's major services such as cargo handling, pilotage and porterage.
Service operators who use government-owned facilities at the ports such as water supply, weighbridge and truck scale are subject to payment of permit fee and remittance of at least 10 percent from their gross income as government share to PPA.
Twenty private sector operator-representatives upheld the increase through a unanimous vote done viva voce from various companies composed of tugboat operators, pilots, forwarders, shipping lines, shippers and exporters. (With press release)
