Under siege: the new “owners” of the Kherson port do not let agents third party berth

The standard working situation has turned into a real detective in the Kherson seaport. The agency of the merchant fleet and the work of a private operator in the port became under the risk.

The problem arose on Tuesday, February 1st, in the evening. A representative of the Stark Shipping agency company was supposed to deliver customs andimmigration officers to the berth No.6 of the port. The sixth berth is jointly used by the USPA and Dnipro Cargo LLC – the latter accepted the vessel for loading.

However, the agent was not allowed to pass the port checkpoint. Representatives of the passes bureau of Kherson port LLC stated that the agent was denied access to the territory. At the same time, they referred to a certain order of the company’s management. Moreover, the guards were allegedly instructed to confiscate all previously issued annual passes from the Stark Shipping representatives.

Since all land routes to the vessel were inaccessible, the agent had to order a boat and deliver authorities from the sea side, and not from the pier – that is, bypassing Kherson port LLC. The representatives of the shipowner had no other way to carry out the necessary actions to check and formalize the vessel.

Such an actions of Kherson port LLC are already waiting for the reaction of the Antimonopoly Committee, since they contradict the existing conditions of work of Dnipro Cargo and make it impossible to provide agency services for merchant vessels coming to the berth used by said company.

It should be noted that Kherson port took on the balance sheet not only all the gates of the port, but in general the entire territory, including infrastructure and even a fence around the port. In fact, Dnipro Cargo was surrounded by another enterprise, and its activities are now completely dependent on the Kherson port.

In December, when the final contract for the transfer of the property of the state-owned enterprise Kherson Commercial Sea port to the concessionaires was concluded, the idea was about berths No. 2,3,4,5, as well as warehouses, transshipment areas and gatehouses. Berth No. 6 was not mentioned in the documents, but the monopoly position of the concessionaire, in fact, transfers the berth under the control of the concessionaire.

Why did the concessionaire decide to impede the work of the agent and even representatives of the customs and border service? The answer is simple: the Antimonopoly Committee has not yet assessed the concession agreement. It turns out that the Kherson port has the opportunity to control everything that happens in the water area and on the territory of the port with absolute impunity.

Representatives of Stark Shipping and Dnipro Cargo have already applied to the Kherson branch of the USPA and the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine with a demand to intervene in the situation and provide access to berth No. 6. In addition, the enterprises turned to the Ministry of Infrastructure, the editorial board has copies of the relevant documents.

Note that there is still no response from the authorities. Is it possible to assume that the concessionaire monopolizes the entire port – with the silent assent of all government agencies?

USM is monitoring the situation as it develops. Already next week we will tell you how the concessionaire seized the entire port, and whether there are legal reasons to dispute his actions.

Liliia Pisarchuk.