The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has called on the federal government to include all relevant stakeholders especially the freight forwarders in the planned review of the port concession agreement.
The National President of NAGAFF, Chief Increase Uche who made this call in a chat with newsmen in Lagos recently stated that the move would help the government avoid the mistakes it made during the port concession in 2006.
Uche who posited that it would be improper to constitute a review committee without including the freight forwarders added that critical stakeholders had shown interest to be part of the review committee so as to correct mistakes of the past.
According to him,”2006 concession generated a lot of hues. Critical stakeholders like freight forwarders are agitating that now that government has seen the need to review the concession agreement, to correct the shortcomings, we will like to make our inputs from our informed perspective. If government goes ahead to constitute committee without the freight forwarders, it will be improper.
“So for us in NAGAFF, our position right now is that we will give support to NPA and whosoever that is involved. Thank God that ICRC is now involved, they are more technically inclined to carry out this reform and the freight forwarders must be involved fully, the shipper who is the owner of the cargo must be there then the carrier who is the owner of the vessel, the vehicle or truck owner must be involved, that is the three parties.
“Likewise in formulating any policy or agreement, that will form the policy framework with which the port will operate, we are calling for a holistic approach in constituting the committees that will review and monitor operations at the end of the review”.
The NAGAFF boss further suggested that a post review committee should be put in place to monitor the activities of the operators to make sure that they keep to the tenets of the agreements reached.
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