President, African Federation of Freight Forwarders (AFFF);Chief Lexzy Nwangwu in this exclusive chat with Shipping Position Daily, talked about how the African Union(AU)-affiliate body came into existence and his dream for the association in the next four years. Nwangwu who is also the Vice Chairman of Board of Trustee s of Association of Registered Freight Forwarders of Nigeria (AREFF), also spoke about the freight forwarding profession. He told our correspondent; Roland Ekama what Nigerians should expect from the three months old global freight forwarding association.
What does the Africa Federation of Freight Forwarders represent?
African Federation of Freight Forwarders (AFFF) is an off-shoot of the African maritime transport charter with the aim of driving African maritime strategy. The Africa integrated maritime strategy is the spirit that drives African maritime charter. The strategy is looking at what they have in the maritime sub sector and to study how they are from one region to another in order to notice. Also, it known that non-Africans are poaching on African resources without the knowledge of member nations. And we also notice that some the Africa nations don't own vessels but have the raw materials and even the cargoes. And those cargoes are carried by non-Africans, which is not good enough for our continent. That is why and how the African Ship Owners Association came on board, African Women in Maritime came up ,Association of Maritime Administrators, and AFFF also came up to pursue that maritime transport charter; focusing on total implementation of the aim strategy and that was how it all started. However we are mandated to set up regional offices for easy reach. We have West Africa regional office, which will soon be established, Central Africa regional office, Southern Africa regional officer, and the eastern and northern regional offices. All these offices will be established for easy co-ordination and to be able to achieve the spirit of the aim strategy which is the Africa integrated strategy.
How long has the association been in existence?
This association is very young and it is about three months old and it will interest you to know that I am the first President of the association; in fact I have four years tenure.
How did you emerge as president of AFFF?
It was simply through an election.
Can you throw light on the election process?
There are no two-way on how to get to the top, because it is through a democratic system of election whereby membership play a crucial role on how the elections were conducted. You have to be a member to qualify and participate in AFFF elections and other activities.
What is the strength of Nigerian membership in AFFF?
We are yet to establish a regional office and that office will establish the Nigeria base office and after that we expect Nigerians to key in. The regional office must come first, we will set up member-nation offices, and then we will start to talk about members. Now, the membership we have is from country to country, not person to person at African level.
As we speak it’s not all African nations that are maritime nations, can you please tell us the countries in Africa that constitutes AFFF?
We have Ghana, Sierra Lone, Togo, Benin, even as we speak those countries are fully represented at the Addis Ababa conference, Cameroon Angola, Sao tome and Principle, South Africa, Kenya ,Tanzania, even Ethiopia that is not a maritime nation is a member; she is considered a maritime nation despite the fact that it is a land lock nation. Ethiopia is a land lock nation, yet they have the highest number of vessels in Africa, thus it’s a maritime nation and they are member. Morocco and Egypt are members as well. Therefore all countries in Africa with boundaries of waters like the Indian Ocean, Gulf of Guinea, Atlantic ocean etc. are members.
Where is the headquarters situated in Africa?
The headquarters of AFFF is located in South Africa.
Why South Africa sir?
South Africa produced the office, immediately after the election they agreed to provide the headquarters secretariat pending when AU will be ready to take over.
What is the relationship between AU and the AFFF?
The association is an off shoot of the AU charter which is the African Maritime Transport Charter; the association is to actualise the spirit of aim strategy.
As the AFFF President from Nigeria, what does the association have for the West African sub region?
What West Africa region will gain is that we will make it easier for members to go for proper training. We will encourage people to go and study freight forwarding as a course, come back and educate West Africans, because an industry that does not have knowledgeable people will not be able to drive that sub sector. The freight forwarding industry in South Africa is large because Nigeria has the cargo in West Africa but East Africa has the largest cargo in Africa. Nigeria as a country in West Africa has the largest cargo throughput in Africa.Therefore Nigeria is a maritime force when you come to Africa. Another thing we will try to do for the benefit of our members is to approach government of all member nations, in order to discourage them from patronising nonindigenous freight forwarders, because we noticed that most project in sub-Sahara Africa are being given to foreigners and in their tender, they put in logistics there. Now the question is what is in the logistics? The logistics are the cargo. They manufacture such things in their countries, award contracts to foreign freight forwarders who do the transportation from the factory to the sea and send shipping documents to a foreigner in West Africa who will clear and deliver and they will tell you it’s all about movement of cargo; that is door to door. These are some of the barriers we want to break this time around. It must be an indigenous freight forwarder who will award that contract to a foreign freight forwarder from that country, so that African will not be seen as conduit pipes and as freight forwarders we will always encourage the shippers to pay insurance locally, because the insurance industry is losing and by the time insurance is paid for all cargoes either going in or import and export as the case maybe, it must be handled by a freight forwarder and insurance must be paid because we know it will create jobs at the continental level.
As the pioneer president of the association; what are your dreams to push the organisation forward?
My dream is to turn around the freight forwarding industry in Africa and also make it an enviable industry in the world. My plan is to change the industry by creating an avenue where school drop-outs can be transformed into a professional, because freight forwarding is a profession and must be treated as such. Again my dream will not stop until the day government of Africa will stop patronising foreign freight forwarders for their cargo. Take Nigeria for instance; Nigerian government is the greatest importer of cargo, yet foreigners handle the clearing, so how do you want the Nigerian freight forwarder to develop themselves when those jobs are given to foreigners? Is it not when you give the jobs that they will have money for further training? They have to train themselves, because the white man will tell you that we don't have the capacity and how can we have capacity when we don't have jobs; when you don't know what freight forwarding is all about? The truth is that our government has failed to give us jobs, they also failed to patronise us as well. My dream will not stop until government of Africa start to patronise indigenous freight forwarder.
How do you intend to interface with the Nigerian freight forwarders?
When we got back from Addis Ababa; the idea of hosting Africa maritime conference which was organised by Africa Ship owners Association, I got myself involved in the preparation of that conference because I wanted the local freight forwarders to come, hear, learn and see what it’s all about, but in the normal way they are all on for their business. I am not sure we have up to 10 freight forwarders in that event. Imagine if such a conference was held in Ghana, Cameroon, South Africa and Benin Republic, won’t their freight forwarders not be in attendance. I personal invited our own freight forwarders but few showed up, even the few that attended cannot finish telling the story by saying that they have not seen anything like it. But it doesn't matter, because I want to finish the establishment of the structure. It is not easy to start a new thing and if you don't have a dream and take up a responsibility, you will not be able to drive it, but Chief Lexzy Nwangwu has a dream and I may be slow but I must get there because Africa will also remain Africa and Africa cargo must be for African freight forwarders.
How do you relate with member-nations?
If you need anything from a member-nation, you will apply through the AU and there are diplomatic ways. There are procedures and communication is key.
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