The leadership of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) yesterday paid a working visit to the Headquarters of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) in Lagos in a renewed move to restore trust and confidence between the two biggest freight forwarding associations in the country.
Speaking on the purpose of the visit, the National President of ANLCA, Iju Tony Nwabunike stated that who opined that the visit was supposed to afford the leadership of the two associations an avenue to sit down and reflect on their challenges and come up with a framework to tackle them.
According to him, “It is not a speech making day, it is all about sitting down, it is supposed to be an interactive session, it is supposed to be a situation where we synergize our ideas together, put on our thinking caps together to know exactly how to make things work.”
Nwabunike recalled that the freight forwarding industry had been faced with tremendous operational problems adding that members of the two associations had been going through severe and excruciating pains getting their containers out of the port as well as putting the services of the maritime industry on notice.
“So, I felt that it is very important, first of all, to come to have a good working relationship with NAGAFF which I consider very seriously as our very best sister association in this industry. So, we felt that it is very important to meet most of these freight forwarding associations to make our point straight that the whole problems at the port even government policies, the road networking, whatever it is that is being impediment to the work and progress of the maritime industry should be tackled together and that is why we are here.
“We need to put our house, our minds and our systems together to get these things working and I felt that it is very important that we come and I tell you the truth, we must move forward – moving forward in our industrial businesses, moving forward in CRFFN”, he stated.
Earlier in his welcome address, the National President of NAGAFF, Chief Increase Uche expressed deep appreciation to the leadership of ANLCA for embarking on the visit which he described as the beginning of god things to come between the two associations
While stating that the two associations were about making another history, Uche noted that “this is an epoch making event that we are having in the house the President of ANLCA and his national officers for the very first time on a friendly official visit.”
“So, to us in NAGAFF, we very much appreciate their coming here today and we pray God that their coming will bring forth a new dawn in the industry because our expectation is a situation whereby there should be collaboration especially between NAGAFF and ANLCA, the two biggest associations in the industry. Collaboration will bring about efficiency in our operation; collaboration will also bring the port industry environment to be more user friendly. It can also make us understand more of our problems and how to go about it to synergize and then have a common pursuit of our purpose of being freight forwarders.
“So, the household of NAGAFF is happy and we deeply appreciate that they are here today for us to rob minds and then forge a new course in handling issues pertaining to the two associations. We pray that this conviviality, the friendship built here today will be cemented and then by the special grace of God, it will be a very solid foundation on which other good things will start manifesting”, he further said.
Speaking on the outcome of the closed door meeting between the two associations, the NAGAFF President stated that the two associations have agreed that there was the need for them to work together saying that “that very friendship and brotherhood that has eluded us in the past, we have identified the problems and we have made corrections that as from today, NAGAFF and ANLCA will continue to be one indivisible body.”
He continued, “In the past, we have not been having issues apart from those sycophants that will try to throw mud from one place to the other trying to create animosity. But now that we have realized that we are adults, we want to do away with every infant behavior. So, it is a new dawn today.
“We want to make sure that as from today, the two biggest associations in the industry will now start to take lead, face the challenges we are facing because this is the monster that has been dividing by the challenges in the industry which all of us are aware of ranging from the government agencies, terminal operators, service providers, bad roads, government not coming to our rescue and all that. That this is the major purpose for us to decide to tackle issues headlong.”
Photo: From L-R: National President, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Iju Tony Nwabunike, National President, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Chief Increase Uche and the founder, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Dr. Boniface Aniebonam during ANLCA’s working visit to NAGAFF headquarters in Lagos yesterday.
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