Chief Frank Ukor is the national president of Association of Registered Freight Forwarders of Nigerian (AREFFN). In this interview with Dapo Olawuni, he spoke about his battle to get AREFFN registered by CRFFN, the current crisis in CRFFN and sundry other issues.
What do you have to say about the alleged tenure elongation by the CRFFN Council members?
I don’t know why you are talking about tenure elongation, because there is no tenure elongation, the present council was inaugurated on the 23rd of November 2010 and they are supposed to last for two years, so the tenure is expiring on the 23rd of November this year, so nobody has elongated anything, maybe there was a misunderstanding, people did not know, the first council was inaugurated in August, the second council was inaugurated in November, maybe the members thought that since the first council was inaugurated in August, their own tenure will also expire, but it is clarified that their tenure will expire in November, so if by 23rd of November they feel there is need to extend it, then the council will sit and if the minister approves it, they will be given more time for them to organize their elections, but this issue of people calling for an interim government is not in the Act, and the minister of transport has also made it explicit that he cannot do anything outside the Act, because NAGAFF came in and was clamouring for an interim executive where some stakeholders will come in, but the minister said that this is not in the Act.
So, are the first elected council members still in office?
After the election in April, it took them some time before the council was inaugurated by the then Minister of Transport, (Okechukwu Emeka), at the end of the tenure in August 2010, all the people that where appointed by the minister left because their tenure has expired, except eight people that were elected, these eight people are to stay for four years, so when all the people appointed by the minster who are greater in number left, the remaining eight left is not enough to form a quorum, so at this time the council was in limbo and nobody can take any decision until the minister made another appointment, so the minister’s appointees and those who were elected by the freight forwarders team up and the council was inaugurated in November, this was the only time that the second council had life and was able to move.
What is the possibility of having the CRFFN election this November?
Well, that is what we don’t know, the council is already crying that there is no money, and if there is no money; I don’t see how they can perform a miracle to conduct elections, maybe they will have to borrow money because the council can borrow money, so if they are able to raise money, then they will conduct their elections.
Are the years the members have spent in office not long enough for them to conduct elections?
Well, I think so, but you know there was a crisis in CRFFN, so during that crisis, maybe there were a lot of distractions and that was why they did not think about how to get about it, till now.
Taking the fight to FIATA, is this the right step?
I don’t think so, anybody that writes FIATA now is just wasting his time, they have already accredited CRFFN so anybody going there is just wasting his time, recently FIATA approved executive diploma course that was organized by CRFFN, the council appointed institutions that will be carrying out the training, FIATA has approved it and given the council a pass mark. So all the people that have attended that course has an international certificate and anywhere you go around the world you will be recognized, so I don’t know who is writing to FIATA and for what reason, I don’t think there is any problem now and as far as I am concerned anybody writing FIATA is just wasting his time, because if you report to FIATA what will they do over tenure elongation? FIATA is not interested in the internal arrangement of each country; this is an internal arrangement, so why would they be bothered about tenure elongation. But then, let me ask you, all this people crying about tenure elongation, what are they gaining from it? If they dissolve the council now what would they get apart from going for elections? They only want to go into the council through the back door, they want an interim to be appointed so that they can come and run the place, when we go for the elections, those that are worthy will be elected, so let nobody try to come in through the back door.
We also heard that the minister is considering dissolving the council
Why would the minister dissolve the council? Have they finished their tenure? I don’t think they have finished their tenure but whatever happens the minister should do whatever he likes, but if he does anything outside the Act people will go to court because there will be problems.
Is it true that port charges have increased?
Yes it has and we have written about it, we wrote to the Nigerian Ports Authority that it is not right for the terminal operators to increase their charges arbitrarily, they would have discussed it with us first, but they have met on the issue and a committee was inaugurated to look into it and come up with a recommendation which they might adopt, so we are waiting for the recommendation of the committee and we will follow it up from there, but one of the arguments of the terminal operators is that people are using their terminals as warehouses, they bring in their containers and leave it there for a very long time, so if they increased their charges to force these people to carry their cargoes, then there is a lot of reasoning there, but before they increased it we should have had a meeting where we would have all agreed, they should have carried the stakeholders along, if this had been done people wouldn’t have been contesting it, but when they come up on their own and increased it arbitrarily then people are bound to react.
On the part of the association, what are you doing to enlighten your members not to use terminals as storage areas?
We have always told the importers to come up and clear their cargoes, make genuine declarations and collect your goods, we have always told them, but you know that some people import goods on credit, they just tell the manufacturer and he manufactures it, but he will withhold the bill of laden until they have paid, but some people do not pay until a very long time and that is why some of the containers stay for long time in the port, but those that buy and pay collect their bill of laden and they clear it immediately without wasting time. So this is the situation, so we have always told them to pay in time, many of them are compliant, except for a few that import goods on credit, and because they do not have the instruments to clear it, they leave the cargo there.
When the NPA met with stakeholders, your association was not represented, why?
When we heard about this we wrote to the NPA for them to invite us but they did not invite us and I don’t know why, but we will write them and ask why they dint invite us to the meeting, if they are discriminating against some associations; it is very wrong, because government has accredited all the associations so they ought to invite representatives of all the associations because we are all stakeholders, a situation where they invite some and leave others behind will not augur well; because if tomorrow they come out with any decisions, I can say that we were not represented and so we will not be part of it, if tomorrow I do anything contrary and they ask me, I will challenge them that we were not told, I am not begging for people to invite me to meetings.
Is it true that you have a personal vendetta against Prince Olayiwola Shittu of ANLCA?
I do not have any personal vendetta against them, they are the ones that have a vendetta against me, I left ANLCA because it was time for me to get up, I wanted an opportunity where my voice will be heard in the industry, all the efforts I made they blocked it because of personal reasons, but we floated this association and thank God that it is growing, but some people said that over their dead body will they see this association registered, I can call names; Dr. Opara, he is the one that influenced Shittu, I had no problems with Shittu, I have never done anything against him, so for him to get up and say that over his dead body will they register this association, what are we struggling for, somebody somewhere is feeding him lies and he is working on them without trying to find out the truth, they try to use their positions to frustrate our association and make sure that we were not registered, but just like I told Shittu that if for any reason at the end of the day this association is not accredited I will start calling him God. I wrote him a letter and I told him, so now who is on a personal vendetta, is it me against them or they trying to make sure that since I left ANLCA my association will never grow, they are trying but I always rely on God, I will do the much I can and leave the rest to God and I know I will be vindicated.
How can peace be restored into the freight forwarding family?
Definitely there is bound to be wrangling in the industry, do you know why? When NAGAFF got its accreditation through a Memorandum of Understanding that was signed, not that they qualified, but as soon they got the accreditation, they went on air and called us a mushroom, they said every other association should come and collapse into ANLCA and NAGAFF, so they drew a line and see themselves as the good ones and describe us as mushrooms, but if I am mushroom, what will I be doing with a so called big man, if I go to him he will try to swallow me, so because of this, those of us that they called mushroom decided to come together and forge ahead, and I tell you today, we have outnumbered them, let them come down from their heights and know that there are other associations irrespective of the number, most of the people they claim are their members are equally my members, they are registered with me, most of them have left them and they are now with us. The only way out is that when they come down from their heights and recognize that all of us are equal before the law, then we can all come together and move forward, but if they continue then we will see who will lose at the end of the day.
What is your position on the collection of practicing fees at the port?
In 1990, I was a member of ANLCA and I was the first secretary of the committee that started the collection of practicing fee, it was my car that we were using to go round the ports to collect it, since then ANLCA has been collecting the money and they have gotten so rich, those who want to get all those money they are collecting are now killing themselves to become chairmen and chapter executives, and when these monies are collected nobody gives account of it, so whatever they collect goes into their private pocket, it is because of that money that there is a do or die affair at the elections. We all agreed at the JACOFF meeting again that we should be collecting this money but it was the mode of collection that caused problem and the matter was referred to the CRFFN, and the CRFFN says they want to use their machinery to collect this money, after this they started talking about the sharing formula, it was the sharing formula that they disagreed with that started the whole thing and the council said that you cannot share money that government collects, so you can now see that they have removed the collection from ANLCA and given to the council and the money now goes to the government.
Why didn’t the CRFFN think of collecting this money all this while?
It is because those that were piloting the affairs of the council were the people misleading them, apart from the eight people that were elected as freight forwarders, the rest of the people in the council were not, and out of this, the six people that were appointed by the minister were from ANLCA, and they were the people that have been eating the money, so they kept eating the money and did not tell them the right thing to do, if they had people like me, I would have told them that what they were doing is not right, but they were all members of ANLCA who have benefitted in one way or the other from the practicing fee, so they kept the council in the dark. If we want to have peace in the industry, the CRFFN should collect the money and give subventions to associations according to their budget, just check ANLCA elections, you will find out that those that win will be extra rich but those that loose will just die, some will die naturally, some economically while some will go to the other world, this money is the cause of everything, if they remove this money now it will be difficult for them to be violent because the money will not be there again, whatever government gives you, you must account for it, this is what ANLCA does not want because they have not been accounting for it, time will come that we will ask them to give us account of the money that they have collected since 1990.
Don’t you think each association has the right to collect money from their members, regardless of what the CRFFN says?
We are talking about practicing fee, many of the people clearing goods at the ports are not members of any association, 75 per cent of the goods that come into the ports are cleared by people who do not belong to any association, so how do they collect, ANLCA come to the gate with bouncers, they intimidate you and force you that you must pay, they have forced me to pay and I paid, they collected the money by force and you cannot do anything about it, if you report to the authority, the authority in one way or the other is also benefitting, so they don’t want to do anything, I have taken the matter to the NPA, police and so on but they have refused to do anything about it and ANLCA is still collecting the money till tomorrow.
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