The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has reiterated its commitment to ensuring that freight forwarders and licensed customs agents are constantly trained to meet the required best practice standard globally.
Executive Secretary of the Council; Mr Hassan Bello made this known yesterday in Lagos during a one day sensitisation seminar held in Lagos.
Tagged :”Industry best practices and ethical standard requirements in freight forwarding profession, Bello said that the seminar is a deliberate attempt by the Council as an economic regulator of the ports to promote capacity building in the freight forwarding sub sector of the maritime industry.
The Executive Secretary who was represented by deputy director, Standard Services; Mr Moses Oyebode Olusegun, noted that the role of the freight forwarders in logistics chain cannot be over-emphasised since they work with importers and exporters to ensure that cargoes are secured within international frontiers.
According to him, the council decided to package the enlightenment seminar as part of effort to expose the Nigerian freight forwarders to meet with standard practices and ethical conduct in international trade.
He said “the role of the freight forwarders in logistics chain cannot be over emphasised since they work with importers and exporters and other relevant stakeholders to ensure that goods are secured and promptly freighted from origin to destination, using standard best practice and ethics of international trade”.
Bello however called on freight forwarders to ensure that training and re training remains an integral part of their profession.
The economic port regulator boss further reiterated that freight forwarders and customs brokers must be exposed to acceptable standards of practice in the profession in order for them to operate effectively and efficiently at the ports, “thereby minimising unethical practices and promoting efficient service delivery at the ports”.
He noted that, “In spite of the immense contributions of freight forwarders to socio- economic development of Nigeria, the required industry best practice and standard is yet to be achieved”
“This therefore calls for more training and re-training freight forwarders to ensure smooth and efficient clearance of goods at the ports”.
He, however urged participants to take advantage of the seminar in order for the practitioners to be transformed in the interest of the industry and general public.
Bello further stressed that the “I have no doubt in my mind that this enlightenment seminar would provide the needed platform for exchange of ideas and knowledge that would add value to our nation’s freight forwarding profession”
Also speaking , lead speaker and maritime lawyer, Barrister Emeka Akabogu, explained the roles of both freight forwarders and customs brokers.
In his lecture, the maritime lawyer added that most freight forwarders in Nigeria are actually customs brokers with a limited number offering end to end freight forwarding services properly so called.
“The standards and ethics we shall focus on will nonetheless apply to those categories of persons while equally subsuming the entire freight forwarding profession”, he added.
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