The raging controversies over the collection of practicing fee at the nation’s ports by the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) took a new dimension yesterday when the Council condemned the management of the Nigeria Custom Service for allegedly working against its interest and its determination that Nigerian freight forwarders are professionalized.
The raging controversies over the collection of practicing fee at the nation’s ports by the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) took a new dimension yesterday when the Council condemned the management of the Nigeria Custom Service for allegedly working against its interest and its determination that Nigerian freight forwarders are professionalized.
This statement is a direct reaction to a letter that was allegedly written by the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Custom Service, Alhaji Inde Abdullahi Dikko to the Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar, advising him to stop the council from collecting transaction fees on all cargoes coming into the nation's port.
While addressing a press conference at the CRFFN headquarters in Lagos yesterday, Chairman of the governing council of CRFFN, Alhaji Hakeem Olanrewaju identified the Customs as the council's number one enemy, saying that the Customs wants to continue benefiting from the ignorance of Nigerian freight forwarders.
He alleged that the Nigerian Customs Service is currently sponsoring two frontline freight forwarding associations in the industry; the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agent (ANLCA) and the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) to kick against the collection of transaction fees which the CRFFN intends to, among other things, use to train and professionalise Nigerian freight forwarders.
Speaking further, Olanrewaju said that, "I was so shocked at the management of the Nigerian Customs which was the first organization we visited when we started and asked for their collaboration on training, I believe the Nigeria Customs does not want us to grow, they still want to benefit from our ignorance which we want to stop, we want to do freight forwarding as it is being done in the whole world".
According to him, the Customs Service has been issuing licenses to clearing agents over the years, but it has not been making any efforts to get them trained, "this is why they call most of our people touts, but we don't want to be touts anymore, we want to be of international best practices because 70 percent of our jobs have been taken over by foreigners".
Alhaji Olanrewaju cautioned that the Nigerian Customs Service as a parastatal under the Ministry of Finance has no business interfering with matters which has to do with the CRFFN under the Ministry of Transport.
He pointed out that the move of the Customs about fees collection is a deliberate attempt to cripple the CRFFN because fees collection from freight forwarders by agencies such as NDLEA, SON and NAFDAC over the years was never contested by either the Customs or the clearing agents themselves.
He however lamented that the council is currently starved of funds because the Federal Government has not allocated money to it for the past two years to augment cost to day-to-day running of the council.
"It has been very difficult to run the council without money, to even buy fuel for the five offices of the council nationwide has been difficult”, he said.
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