Story by Dili Utomi.
A pressure group of freight forwarders collectively known as the Concerned Nigerian Freight Forwarders made up of operators from diverse freight forwarding associations has written a strongly worded letter stating their greviances to the Minister of Transportation, Mu’azu Jaji Sambo.
The letter which was signed by Dr. Basil Nwolisa reads in part: We are surprised and disappointed at the way the Freight Forwarders are suffering with no succor from the CRFFN, whose mandate includes the welfare and protection of their businesses.
We want to know what is causing the slow approach by the Council in carrying out their regulatory functions.
That in spite of the fact that the Concerned Nigeria Registered Freight Forwarders (CNRFF) has thrown its weight in support of the implementation of the 32 Resolutions contained in the FFCF Communique, non of the items has been enforced.
We want to know why the Freight Forwarders are abandoned and forced to resort to self help while the Registrar relaxes in his air conditioned office to monitor the payment of POF and while he ignores the welfare of those he is regulating their trade.
Today, the freight forwarders are facing issues relating to Customs arbitrary issuance of Debit Notes, baseless queries on genuine clasifications made for customs purposes, shipping company high handedness and terminal operators operating without basic equipment etc. Here again, we have no one else to complain to. We are just at the mercy of the govemment agencies and service providers.
Kindly use your good office to ask the CRFFN who are our regulators to let us know what the issues are particularly those we voted to represent us. The 15 practitioners owe us some explanations on what is going on in the Council.
What is the actual truth on the issue of alleged certificate forgery levelled on the Registrar and the rumour that the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of transportation is sheilding him from being prosecuted for the various infractions?
We have seen that the Registrar is careless about carrying out his roles and he should be called to order and if found not having the capacity, he should be shown the way out.
If after seven (7) days from now and our association discovers that no one cares for our plights we shall take it officially, and if that approach fails, the next option shail be to galvanize support from our members to withdraw our services from the Ports all over the nation.
The letter was also copied to the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council as they itemized some other issues that they imagine could cause serious disharmony within the freight forwarding community and asked that the Minister attend to the issues raised with the deserved urgency.
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