The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has called on the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) to do away with the provision in its regulation that allow foreigners practice freight forwarding in the country.
It will be recalled that the CRFFN Regulations 2010 provided that for any foreign company to engage in freight forwarding in Nigeria, the Chief Executive Officer or the Chief Operating Officer of such company must be a Nigeria.
But in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos last weekend, the Chairman of NAGAFF, Ijora/Lillypond Chapter, Rev. Emmanuel Agubanze suggested that the Council should not give room for foreigners to carry on the job of freight forwarding in Nigeria as he said it encouraged capital flight.
Agubanze noted that there was the need for Nigerians to be protected in their own country especially when one takes into consideration the issue of unemployment that was ravaging the youths of this country as at today.
According to him,” you discover that even in some West African countries, if you are a Nigerian, you can’t freely enter their ports and start pursuing business and CRFFN is saying that in Nigeria, being that they are the regulating body, that for foreign business concerns that are based here, they are talking about the Managing Director of the company or the Chief operating officer being a Nigerian, but they should not even talk about that”.
“We should be able to empower our own people, we should be able to empower our own businessmen here. And when we talk about regulation, when we talk about trying to foster sustainable freight forwarding practice and you now want to professionalize, there is the need to ensure that Nigerians are protected”.
On the efforts of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council to discourage foreigners from participating in Freight Forwarding practice in Nigeria he said,” it is a very good intentioned idea by the CRFFN and the Shippers’ Council and I always say that when a policy of this nature is formulated, it should be implemented. We want to give kudos to them but we want to say that they should stick to their guns and make sure that this local content is adhered to’.
On his part, the Chairman of NAGAFF, Seme Border Chapter, Eze Ekene Ajunwa described the move by the Nigerian Shippers’ Council to discourage foreign companies from participating in the freight forwarding business in Nigeria pointing out that the mere fact that he was a freight forwarder operating at the Nigerian border with Benin Republic did not guarantee him access to enter Beniniose port and start operating as a freight forwarder.
Ajunwa noted that rather than jumping into the profession in Benin Republic even when he knew it, he would contract a citizen of that country to carry out the transaction on his behalf while he only follow him up.
“So, if Nigeria should do that, I think it is a right thing because you may like to know, a lot of foreigners especially in the border areas that is where they have much right to operate or do some clearing and forwarding jobs. But if it is in the seaport here, I don’t think any foreigner could be seen at the seaport but I know where we have such people is at the land borders. So, I think it is a good development”, he said.
On why he believe that foreigners were operating more in the land borders than in the seaport, he answered,” yes of course because in the seaport here, normally you have what is called port permit and if you don’t have it, you can’t go in there and for you to get such, you must belong to a company, you must be a citizen of this country”.
