The National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA) has cleared the air about its non-involvement in the activities of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding (CRFFN) in Nigeria, saying that the association has no business with the council.
The Public Relations Officer of NCMDLCA, Mr. Raph Agbogu, said this last week in a chat with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos.
Explaining further, Agbogu, who debunked the rumor of fractionalization in the association, also said that the group is under the Ministry of Finance while CRFFN is under the Ministry of Transportation and therefore they don’t have any business together.
“There is no fraction in our association, we have no business with CRFFN, we are licensed customs agents working under the ministry of finance while CRFFN is working under the ministry of transportation. So people should get to understand that we have no business with CRFFN”, he insisted.
He also blamed the lingering crisis rocking the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) on its membership of the CRFFN.
He said, “For instance every of those associations work according to its name, look at what is happening at ANLCA; now they trying to dissolve all the executives for going to CRFFN. Go to article 47 sub section 3, it gives place to licensed customs agents under ministry of finance. But if you are talking about freight forwarding you are talking about transportation. A freight forwarder is a transporter even a cart pusher, the man that moves goods to Maiduguri is a freight forwarder, because he is forwarding freight. If you are talking about trade procedure experts, licensed customs agents, classifier of cargos; that is who we are under ministry of finance, we are actually the revenue collectors. That is why we have license, but a freight forwarder does not have license to clear”.
