As the elected members of the Council for Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) Governing Council await their formal inauguration, the National President of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Chief Increase Uche has said that he has no personal agenda to pursue at the Council but to pursue the corporate agenda of the association.
Uche who stated this in an interview with newsmen in Lagos recently said that his position was informed by the fact that NAGAFF as an association already had an objective for the Council adding that whatever he had to contribute based on his position as the National President, he had to bring to bear.
In his words,” I particularly, you all know my standing. Being a member of the council, I am one of the qualified individuals elected to be there. From the NAGAFF family where I am representing, I am not going to carry out my own agenda because the association already has an objective. Our founder was at the epicenter of the entire exercise, so, what we hope now is that that his mindset of returning other great minds, this is the time now that we are going to follow it up. I will not have a personal agenda but whatever I have to contribute based on my standing, I will bring it to bear”.
He pointed out that he was aware that the expectations from the industry stakeholders were very high promising that they were not going to leave any stone unturned.
“The original concept of the Council is to bring about professionalism in our profession and right now, that seemed to be lacking after about eight years and the hope we have now is that some of us that know the intendment of the council are there, we are going to pursue that issue of professionalizing the freight forwarding sector, creating capacity, liberating freight forwarders and reviving the entire freight forwarding chains. It’s going to be an elaborate exercise”, he added.
While stating that the object clause of the Act under section one of Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria clearly states that the Council was established among other things to determine the standard of knowledge and skills to be acquired by individual members of the Council, he noted that they were going to pursue it so as to bring about training, capacity building and human resource development to the industry.
The NAGAFF boss who recalled that during the last election of the Council in 2008, the council was hijacked by those who didn’t understand the concept of CRFFN hence the entire process was truncated however added that with NAGAFF members in the Council currently, things would be done differently this time around.
“So, what we intend to do now is to go back to the drawing board, contact the originators of this Act and then start again from the scratch so that those mistake of the past will now be corrected and the intendment of those great minds will be pursued vigorously.
“The business we have to do in CRFFN is more important to us now than the one we are going to do in NAGAFF, that is the clearing house and that is where we will now be taking directive on how to develop the sector”, he stated.
On the collection of the Practitioners’ Operating Fee (POF), he said,” How are we going to sustain ourselves? That is the only life wire of the CRFFN apart from the little subvention or allocation that will come from the federal purse. To create that capacity, we need money and the fund must come from cargo. You look at the shipping sector where cabotage was created, under that, we have the CVFF and that was meant to develop that sector. You look at NPA today, NPA rely on 7 percent surcharge on duty collected, then you look at even customs, they are collecting 7 percent from the total collection. So, the freight forwarding sector equally needs to have where they will draw from to sustain it and then make impact in the economy”.
He however dismissed the fear that the elected members of the associations would fight among themselves at the Council and would not speak with one voice adding that all that was left was for them to churn out policies from there and every other person will fall in line.
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