91,000 sacks of donated rice undelivered

PART of the rice that was donated by the Algerian government, which is shown in this Jan. 4 photo, remains undelivered in the Cebu International Port. Algerian Ambassador Abdelaziz Bouteflika (center) had turned over the initial 780 metric tons of rice to DSWD Regional Director Mercedita Jabagat. With them was Toufik Koudri, first secretary of the Embassy of Algeria. CARMEL MATUS/INQUIRER VISAYAS

CEBU CITY, Philippines—At least 91,000 sacks of rice donated by the Algerian government for victims of Super Typhoon “Yolanda” have remained inside container vans at the Cebu International Port (CIP) since these arrived in January and February.

This is because the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) needs  P14 million to pay for storage and transport fees to deliver these to the beneficiaries.

Rosario Bacong, DSWD-Central Visayas food and nonfood cluster coordinator, said they had requested funds from the central office and were expecting to receive the P14 million this week.

In a press conference yesterday, DSWD Regional Director Mercedita Jabagat announced that P10 million had been initially released from their central office.

Assistant Regional Director for Administration Marcial Fernandez said they received the amount on May 16.

The DSWD needs to pay P5.8 million in storage fees demanded by YangMing Marine Transport Corp. and APL Philippines, owners of the container yards where the container vans are placed. Fernandez said they had to pay P500 per day to YangMing for every undelivered cargo container and P1,400 per day to APL.

Based on their latest billing, Fernandez said they owed the two companies P6.6 million in storage fees alone.

In a breakdown given by the DSWD, the P14-million funding will cover P6,581,400 for the storage fees of the 175 container vans, P180,000 for the releasing charges, P1,260,000 for the trucking services for the transfer of the cargo from CIP to their warehouse, P202,400 for the stripping and stuffing, P5,534,628 for the shipping cost from Cebu province to Tacloban City and P1,050,000 for the rental of their warehouse.

“These (cargo containers with rice) have been cleared by the Bureau of Customs (BOC). We only have to pay for the demurrage for these to be released,” she said.

DSWD records showed that the Algerian government donated a total of 127,920 sacks of rice placed inside 246 container vans that arrived in Cebu in six batches. The first batch of shipments arrived in January.

Fernandez, who was in charge of the processing of the release and funding of these donated sacks of rice, explained that it took them a month to acquire the import permit from the National Food Authority (NFA) in Manila before the shipments could be cleared and released by the BOC.

Fernandez said they had to request import permits for each of the shipments of donated rice.

DSWD records showed that there had been seven shipments of  rice. The first arrived on Jan. 2 and the last arrived on Feb. 13.

Fernandez said he first received the import permit for the three shipments on Feb. 3 and received the import permit for the remaining four shipments on Feb. 24.

Fernandez added that this caused an increase in the storage fee of the remaining 175 container vans at CIP.

Jabagat admitted that the documentary requirements had to be followed prior to the release of the donated sacks of rice. She emphasized that donors should inform the DSWD ahead of time if donations were coming so that they could process the requirements for swift releasing.

Jabagat said 16 container vans from 10 donors outside the country had yet to be released. They would need an additional P1,592,000 to pay for the storage fee of these container vans.

The container vans have donations from Singapore, Thailand, Bahrain, Palau and the United States.

Some of the container vans have ready-to-eat rice, fried rice with chicken and basil sauce, drinking water, canned tuna, tuna pouches and assorted used clothing.