A former national president of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Dr Eugene Nweke has blamed the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) for the emergence of many freight forwarding associations in the Nigerian maritime industry.
Dr Nweke said this in an interview with Shipping Position Daily correspondent in Lagos, even as he argued that if ANLCA had met the expectations of practitioners, there would have been no need for new associations to spring up.
“If they (ANLCA) actually occupy the vacuum, those things that gave room for those other associations to come up would not have appeared”, he said.
Nweke was reacting to a recent statement which emanated from a joint press conference by chairmen of various chapters under the western zone of ANLCA which held at the National Secretariat of the association.
At the event, ANLCA blamed the arms importation into the country on what it alleged as collaboration between the Nigeria Customs Service and ‘mushroom’ freight forwarding associations.
But the former NAGAFF president frowned at the choice of words by ANLCA.
“They should not be using such languages, it is not befitting in the professional setting where I belong” he said.
Reacting to ANLCA’s claim of being the oldest association, Eugene said that it is wrong to weigh the price of something by its age, rather than it’s content.
“You say that some associations are mushrooms and you are the old ones, you don’t weigh the price of something by the age, it is by the content. You can be as old as anything, but you don’t have the content to support that age”, he stated
He also said that ANLCA has all it takes to do well in the sector, even as he urged the association to better, instead of looking down on other associations.
He also reiterated that calling other associations mushroom makes it look like ANLCA is opposed to competition.
“They have all it takes so they should go ahead and develop that thing that will give you added advantage over others. They should stop looking at others as mushroom, because if they do that, it will look like they are opposed to competition, and I don’t think ANLCA is opposed to competition so they should address others as sister associations.
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