By Bon Peters
The Registrar /CEO of the Council For the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria ,CRFFN, Mr. Kingsley Igwe has charged practitioners from the Eastern Ports to always maintain the standard operating procedures in their business
This charge came on the heels of his first familiarization visit to the freight forwarders weekend in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
Igwe, who said his cardinal objectives were to have an accurate information of the real freights forwarders, education of freight forwarders, improved welfare and ensure they key into the trade facilitation mantra of the federal government, even as he called on them to ensure cooperation and synergy among members and other agencies of the government.
He stated that the aim of the programme was to bring education and training to the freight forwarders, terminals operators, warehouse operators among others with a view to building capacity and to finding lasting solutions to issues that hamper seamless operations at the ports which include false declaration, wrong classifications disagreement in Demand Notice (DN), among others
He said: “The essence of today’s gathering is first, familiarization and synergy.”
He promised making the gathering a regular one even as he insisted he has succeeded in bringing to the fore what his regime is about to do for the stakeholders, saying that, “We are going to bring more of this kind of gathering. Basically, what we have achieved today is that of fusion, as what the new regime is doing while waiting for more of the expectations of the operators under our supervision.”
Continuing, the CRFFN boss asserted that, “though information of what we have achieved so far is in the media space for everyone to access but we want to hear directly from them and also, I am taking my time to explain most of the things that are not very clear to them.
“Today they have come to know the essence of educating and providing educational activities, which is one of the mandates of my regime.
“Besides that, we are bringing up global standard operating procedures that will be seamless in the discharge of their services.”
He reiterated that stakeholders would be trained on the best way of doing their jobs, following laid down rules and regulations.
He went further saying that the training of operators is a collective effort of ministries, government agencies and individuals to help the agency in achieving her set objectives.
He emphasized that the best practice is not only knowing how to do something, but to abide by set up strategy for such an operation.
Insisting that logistics is logistics everywhere in the world, the CEO noted that when the operators are trained in global practices, they can go out there, and operate as the language that is spoken in other parts of world would not be alien to them and the disparity would not be noticed.
“We are here to build them afresh, thank God, for the support of our staff, ministry and practitioners,” he emphasized.
He threw more light on the scope of CRFFN noting that, “By the provisions of the Acts, we are meant to regulate freight forwarding business, associations of truck drivers, even terminal operators in certain areas, warehouses operators, including shipments and also courier services.”
“This is where the issue of interagency comes up. We are going to collaborate with them.”
He reminded stakeholders that ANLCA and other freight forwarding associations left the venue of the meeting, citing court case with CRFFN, he said “what we are doing today, has nothing to do with court cases , we are here to familiarize with them and tell them that a new era has begun in CRFFN and everybody should key into the new vision. What is damaged in 24 hours, can take up to 30 years to rebuild.”
Some stakeholders who spoke at the event expressed their satisfaction.
On his part, the Chairman NAGAFF Onne Chapter, Mr. Ike Anselem said: “today is a special day, the issues we have been clamouring for so long, for the federal government to appoint a practitioner has been realized.
“FG has appointed a powerful practitioner, a professional in the area of freight forwarding industry. I am happy this event has also marshalled out our challenges.We have to work in synergy, assiduously and make sure this regime succeeds and we have to pass the information to other stakeholders.”
Forwarder Ike used the opportunity to solicit for social insurance and buses for his members.
Contributing, Mr. Ngozi Uzohuo appealed to him to address issues of 25% on DN, multiple alerts at Ports, tariff deferential and shipping charges among others.
Responding, the CEO said, “We are proposing reformation and the introduction of a National Single Window which would address the issues and we are asking stakeholders to key into it.”
On his part, the Zonal Head, South- South/ South – East of CRFFN, Mr. Ambrose Uwalaka said he was delighted that the event was a huge success while urging the stakeholders to synergize with the agency to facilitate trade and ensure seamless operations at the ports.
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