Following the recent position of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) where it absolved itself of participating in the sharing of the practicing fee collected at the ports by freight forwarding associations, the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has described NAGAFF as a serial liar.
It will be recalled that NAGAFF in a press statement it issued recently exonerated itself from taking part or benefitting from the practicing fee collection at any port in the country urging the Hononurable Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi to deal with any individual member of the association founding to have benefited from the fee as such a person did not do so with the approval of NAGAFF.
But in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos, the National President of ANLCA, Prince Olayiwola Shittu described NAGAFF’s position as tales by moonlight adding that there was no way a Chairman of NAGAFF of NAGAFF in any Chapter would be collecting millions accruing from the collection to NAGAFF and the founder of the association, Dr. Boniface Aniebonam would turn blind eyes to it.
Shittu disclosed that the money so far collected had been shared between the association and other freight forwarding associations including the Association of Registered Freight Forwarders of Nigeria (ARFFEN) and NAGAFF saying that the payments made to NAGAFF were not made on any individual’s name but that of NAGAFF.
According to him,” It is now that they are turning round that they don’t even mind even if they use that our formular, let something be coming, after they had gone to the Minister and told the Minister that even practicing fee we have been collecting from our members for more than 30 years, they now said it is government money. But it is not POF, it is an existing thing that has been happening in only 3 or 4 chapters out of 17. Do you see anybody collect money in Tincan? Do you see anybody collect money in Apapa? And from the money we collect, we give them oh! AREFF is collecting money from us, likewise NAGAFF.
“What do you expect from the leader? You want to tell me that one Chairman will stay somewhere and be collecting millions and Aniebonam will throw away his face and said he is doing it on his own? Is that the story? What we normally give to them in the name of NAGAFF and not in the name of individual? What are you talking about? That was why I don’t join issues with them. There is nobody that has collected government money, the monies paid were voluntary, we have records of meetings and meetings that we have had that it is neater for us, okay, if CRFFN wants to collect this money now, they are not going to put tyres on the roads but wherever they finally said that is where we are paying the money, I will go and pay and you are telling me that it is an illegal money when I voluntarily pay, is it possible?”
He however clarified that it was wrong to tag the practicing fee elected to be collected by the association by its members following series of meetings of the association government money as the collection of the fee had been ongoing for over 30 years before the creation of CRFFN and subsequently the introduction of the Practitioners’ Operating Fee (POF) by CRFFN.
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