Few weeks after the election into the governing council of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN), founder of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) Dr. Boniface Aniebonam has charged newly-elected members to work more on educating practitioners in the sector.
Dr. Aniebonam made this call in a chat with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos last week, even as he said that all NAGAFF was doing was to ensure that the council met its objective.
He also maintained that one of the major problems in the sector is that most practitioners are ignorant of the trade laws.
"All we are doing here at NAGAFF is to ensure that CRFFN meets its objective because it’s good for the society and also good for the industry and for international trade. Because the masses are getting out of hands because of lack of knowledge some of them don't even know that what they are doing is against the law. So what we need to do is to educate them. And the media as an eye of the public, this is time that you begin to change your modus operandi of reportage", he said.
"A lot of things are beginning to develop, but we will continue to work with some good minds in ANLCA because we can't continue to make those mistakes, because at the beginning the council was meant to fail, right from the beginning; probably because those who actually were part of the drafting of that CRFFN were not found there. We need to look at the intentions of the people who drafted that bill. We need to ask the people what they had in mind when they were making that act. The CRFFN act is there it is still a good thing that some of the members when they get there they will still look at some things"
According to him, "CRFFN today is an agency of the government based on pronouncement or judgement and that matter is pending at the appeal court where in members of NAGAFF is still insisting that it is not an agency of the government, it is a quasi-government agency. But in a civil society you follow the rule of law. If the court has made an order to say that CRFFN is an agency of the government it has not in any way touch the body of the Act".
He said that what is remaining in the Act is the chairman and vice chairman, who must be a registered freight forwarder.
"The Act remains the same and what is remaining, the chairman and vice chairman of the council must be elected members and the name must be in the list of freight forwarders. If you are not member of the council and your name is not find in the list of freight forwarders, you cannot contest the chairmanship or vice of the council. This is what makes it core professional; the law is there and the Act is just clear on that.
Because what we at NAGAFF are canvassing in the Appeal Court is what is in the National Assembly for amendment. So it is like laying an ambush against the judgement of the court"
"We are saying the CRFFN is not an agency of the government and now the Act is before the National Assembly for amendment, stating that it is an agency of the government. It is right in the senate rule that when a matter is still in court you have to wait. I know we wrote officially to the national assembly informing them that this matter for amendment is still in court and the letter was acknowledged", he concluded.
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