The Nigerian Shippers’ Council has been urged to ensure that it carry freight forwarders at the various chapter levels along if the council is desirous of succeeding in its regulatory mandate.
Chairman of the Apapa Port Chapter of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) Mr. Fred Adjuzie gave the charge on Monday in a chat with Shipping Position Daily in his office at Apapa, Lagos.
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council has been urged to ensure that it carry freight forwarders at the various chapter levels along if the council is desirous of succeeding in its regulatory mandate.
Chairman of the Apapa Port Chapter of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) Mr. Fred Adjuzie gave the charge on Monday in a chat with Shipping Position Daily in his office at Apapa, Lagos.
Adjuzie advised the Council not to pitch its tent with terminal operators and shipping companies whom he accused of gradually killing the Nigerian economy.
Specifically, he alleged that the APM Terminals at the Apapa Port has injected obnoxious charges into their billing system without recourse to due process, especially when containers are being stemmed from the terminal to Lillypond Container Terminal at Ijora, Lagos.
According to Adjuzie, the chapter chairmen of the associations are the foot solders that knows where the problems of the port lies, and they can readily point it out to the Shippers Council for immediate action.
While commenting on the recent national discourse held by the council, the NAGAFF Chairman alleged that even though NAGAFF President, Chief Eugene Nweke and its Founder, Dr. Boniface Aniebonam were present at the meeting, invitations were not sent to the chapters.
"They never bothered to invite chapter chairmen who are the operating officers of the associations, we are the foot soldiers, and there are vital information that we have, that the headquarters may not have".
"We are expecting more from them as a regulating body, they should work with us, not that they will be regulating with just their mouth and not doing what they supposed to do, we are the foot soldiers and we know what is happening in the industry."
"Next time they want to have it, they should extend their letters to chapter chairmen", Adjuzie stressed.
He warned the Shippers’ Council not to pitch tent with shipping companies and terminal operators at the expense of freight forwarders as their usual practice.
Speaking on what he called excesses of the APM Terminals; he alleged that the terminal hide under a nomenclature called 'Royal Service' in order to rip agents off in transferring cargoes from Apapa to Lillypond.
"For instance, if you are stemming containers from APMT to Lillypond, there is what they call Royal Service which is inputted into the system, these are not supposed to be".
"There are lot of charges that they put in that are outrageous, when the chips are down, we are going to bring forward evidences of charges they collect that are not of international practice", he added.
He accused the terminal of over-invoicing freight forwarders and discouraging importers not to come into Nigerian ports. "It makes business so hard, compared to other countries" he said.
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