Even as the verification exercise embarked upon by the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding for all intending members of the council is approaching the deadline, the Council has again stressed that the exercise is meant to reorganise the profession.
Vice Chairman of the Governing Council, CRFFN; Alhaji Hakeem Olanrewaju stressed this recently when he led visiting president of World Cargo Alliance (WCA), Mr David Yokeum on a courtesy visit to the Minister of Transport, Alhaji Yusuf Suleiman in Abuja.
The CRFFN boss told both the Minister and the WCA president that the verification exercise had become necessary in order to boost the image of the country among comity of nations.
“The verification is to oust the quacks and after that we are going to start the training exercise including diploma and advance courses in transportation. All of these are coming up later in the year.”
“We are doing verification and we look forward to partner with WCA because when you look at the outside world the way Nigeria was tinted with bad name, we need to launder our image into the international market”, he explained even as he added that “being a member of WCA will enable us work with other freight forwarders outside the country. When they know you are a member of WCA, they know that you are credible and trustworthy.”
He added that the council is planning to affiliate with some local and foreign institutions in the training of freight forwarding in Nigeria. “We are going to have our curriculum and other tests to meet up. Definitely if you don’t pass the exams you can’t be employed anywhere as freight forwarder. Definitely the system will change overtime”, he said.
On the visit of the WCA president to Nigeria, he said: “the WCA family of logistic network has a regional office in Ghana and the visit to Nigeria is part of the requirement to admit the Council into the international body.
Earlier while welcoming the WCA president, the Minister had lamented the unfavorable port climate which Nigerian shippers are forced to contend with, even as he added that the current state of things in the nation’s seaports have made the ports to be uncompetitive in relation to other ports in neighbouring countries.
“We have been fighting hard to make sure that our ports become competitive and the only way we can do that is to ensure that the costs are reduced. It’s a major challenge to us today that it costs more when you are coming into Nigeria than in the rest in the West African sub-region”.
The Minister further stated that it was in a bid to find a solution to the problem that he inaugurated a committee to audit the performance of the Terminal operators since they took over the management of the ports more than four years ago.
On the proposed membership of WCA by CRFFN, the minister remarked that “things have to change and we will do whatever it takes to change that. I think this is in the right direction. I believe the affiliation and association with CRFFN will address some of these problems.”
Responding, the WCA president explained that the proposed registration of the CRFFN will help in projecting a good image for Nigeria among comity of shipping nations.
“Our organization’s interest in freight forwarding community in Nigeria is that if you become a member of our organization, your credibility is nearly assured in about 175 countries, where we have about 3,400 independent freight forwarders.”
“The point is that Nigeria’s freight forwarders have unique opportunity to regain your credibility in freight forwarding across the world and you will have trustworthy partners in Nigeria. This provides Nigeria the opportunity to operate anywhere in the world and the rest of the world to know that they have credible partners in Nigeria.”
Discussion about this post