Last week, the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarders (CRFFN) opened up on its plans to introduce uniform fees to be charged by freight forwarders for services to be rendered to importers.
The Council’s registrar Sir Mike Jukwe stated that, once approved, freight forwarders would have uniform charges that will be collected as professional fees for cargoes cleared on behalf of their principals.
Last week, the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarders (CRFFN) opened up on its plans to introduce uniform fees to be charged by freight forwarders for services to be rendered to importers.
The Council’s registrar Sir Mike Jukwe stated that, once approved, freight forwarders would have uniform charges that will be collected as professional fees for cargoes cleared on behalf of their principals.
To give vent to the desire, the Council met with leaders of the various registered freight forwarding associations, the national president of Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA); Prince Olayiwola Shittu has also been made the Chairman of Committee to harmonise positions and determine the appropriate fees, depending on cargo type.
Jukwe was quoted as saying: "We are targeting major reforms in the sector, and we want the stakeholders to buy into it as well as the associations. We have got the associations to come together and look at our position and make suggestions and make final? decision".
"One of the issues discussed at our meeting is the issue of common tariff for the clearance of cargoes in Nigeria, and a common billing template, henceforth, when you go to freight forwarder 'A' the price you get is the same with freight forwarder 'B' and 'C’”, he said.
He said that the CRFFN had to put the associations on notice, reason together and device a common approach.
This is the Council’s first interaction with its immediate stakeholders; that is the freight forwarders in 2015.
While we commend the CRFFN for the initiative, we are however at a loss as to how it plans to enforce benchmark fees on the practitioners. This is more worrisome given the fact that the Council cannot (in all honesty) be said to be enjoying total support of the registered associations. It can also not be said that the mass of practitioners for whom the uniform rates will apply are very satisfied with the performance of the council.
It is a known fact that registered freight forwarders and the associations don’t pay their statutory annual fees. This tends to infer that the Council can’t enforce its rules. It also infers that both corporate and individual members of the Council find no benefit from their registration with the Council.
The Registrar himself also confirmed this recently, when he said that: "Not all the freight forwarding associations are paying, but enforcement starts in February and this was why we called them together to brief them”.
He added that any registered member can be deregistered for non-payment of annual fees. According to him, “when we de-register you, it means you cannot practice, we go to the corporate offices and shut them down, we equally have a mobile court that will prosecute individual freight forwarders". How we wish that the CRFFN or its Registrar has the power to carry out this threat. Of course, the Council, since its creation has shown that it can only back and not bite.
Several persons are practicing at our ports and other entry points without being registered, the early euphoria of wanting to be a registered member of CRFFN has died down.
We think that rather than attempting to introduce a benchmark fees for practitioners, the CRFFN should first make itself more relevant to the lives of its members. A lot of times questions are asked about the benefits that have accrued to those who paid for registration and were indeed registered about four years ago.
The Registrar of the Council has been carrying the burden since the expiration of the last governing council, and we commend him for this. However, it is our candid opinion that he should do all within his powers to facilitate the reemergence of a governing council.
We think that once there is a governing council, the CRFFN management led by its Registrar will find it easier to relate with its mass of its registered members. After this, ideas like uniform charges, enforcement of its regulations and others things will become a lot easier.
Discussion about this post