The National Association of Government Approved freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has expressed its regrets at the inability of the Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi to resolve the crisis rocking the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) and get it up and running almost one year after his appointment.
The Deputy National President, Headquarters NAGAFF, Chief Increase Uche who made this known in an interview with our correspondent in Lagos stated that they had hoped that the CRFFN would back to business as soon as Amaechi settled down in office but regretted that that had not been the case even though the parastatal got appropriation from the 2016 budget of the Federal Government.
He described as unfortunate the inability of CRFFN to carry out its statutory responsibility to the freight forwarders even as the year 2016 is about winding down.
According to him,” In the Freight forwarding sector in particular, the CRFFN that we were hoping before now will be back to business, it has not happened though appropriation was done for it this fiscal year but it is unfortunate that it was not there to carry out its regulatory function for the freight forwarders.
“So, if you look at the current situation in the freight forwarding sector as a whole, you will see that relatively, there is no actual direction, activities has been so low, no definite direction because regulatory job that is supposed to be done by the CRFFN is not done.
“Customs now is bent on short changing the entire system because the amendment of CEMA law which is in place, CRFFN would have been in place to make a definite statement or take a position for the freight forwarders but fir CRFFN not being there, we are seeing it as a lacuna so far created. But we hope that before the hearing proper, we must have gotten our acts together”.
While assessing the performance of the maritime industry in the last eleven months that Amaechi has been on the saddle as the Minister of Transportation, he recalled that the Minister did mentioned that that he would turn things around for the industry but regretted that till this moment, not much had been seen rather than the economic recession that had affected the entire economy which is equally having its toll on the maritime industry,
“Coming to my constituency as a freight forwarder, the effect of the current situation in the port actually started with the restriction of FOREX to 41 items by the CBN Governor. So, we thought that that was going to turn the trend of import and export around but unfortunately, that policy ended up compounding the whole issue because the conservation of the foreign exchange it was supposed to take was not feasible rather the economy and the foreign reserve keep going down. But as time roll on, we are hoping that things are going to change but with the current situation, it is nothing to write home about”, he said.
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