The Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) has trained some selected freight forwarding practitioners on digitization of cargo import and export services and business integrity in the Nigerian maritime industry.
The workshop which was organized in partnership with the Convention on Business Integrity (CBI), the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network (MACN) and the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC) also trained some selected shippers and journalists covering the Nigerian maritime sector.
Speaking in his welcome address, the Registrar, CRFFN, Barr. Samuel Nwakohu underscored the importance of the maritime industry and its critical players in the economy of Nigeria adding that the issue of digitalization is as essential as the industry itself as it will promote transparency, trust, productivity and integrity hence the collaboration.
Nwakohu revealed that the workshop was the first in the series of the Council’s planned workshops in the entire spectrum of maritime industry while appreciating the participants for finding time to attend the workshop and looked forward to good deliberations and better relationship with all stakeholders.
The Registrar said, “I am glad you are all here. During our past outing, I had promised that going forward; we will have series of what we had the last time. I had promised that there will be several activities which will benefit the freight forwarders that I am asked to oversee. I know we have so many complains but we are beginning to address them. Today is not a day to talk about those things, today is the day that we can benefit from what has been placed on the table for us.”
Speaking on the theme of the workshop, the Head, Education and Training, CRFFN, Dr. Alban Igwe observed that the essence of the workshop was to educate the freight forwarders and elicit their commitment to sign off integrity saying “whether you are completing a form online, it must be relied upon because the shipping line does not need to see you, the shipper doesn’t need to see you, they rely only on what you have put on paper or online that it is reliable and without that level of trust and transparency and integrity is destroyed and when there is no integrity in business, there is no business.”
Igwe noted that the training was meant to expose the Nigerian freight forwarders on the need to digitalize their operations so that everyone could see them from any part of the world and knowing that their clients were now enlarged, they would make more money for themselves as it would force them to be more transparent because they were serving people who require integrity.
“So, one of the qualifications for doing business internationally is to be transparent and to be able to render service when it is needed. It could be twelve midnight and somebody will say, I need a client from Nigeria and in his country, say Australia, it is 7.00am and you are here, maybe sleeping. So, if you have automated system, you can go and check your website and see what he wants and he books with you. So, that is why you have to be digitalized otherwise, you will be out of market”, he stated.
On what the Council is doing to ensure that the Nigerian freight forwarders make the list of the first ten global players in the freight forwarding industry, he said, “I know in France, there are about two companies, in Germany, there are about two companies, in Japan, there is one company. Just like we qualify for World Cup, we should qualify for everything. First of all, we have to alert people to the trend. For example, today, we have let them to know that at the moment, we haven’t got international players; they are not in the first ten. So, that awareness is a starting point. Providing trainings that will make them qualify is another thing altogether. Creating the network for you to link up with the rest of the world is another opportunity because we are member of FIATA, so, we create link between freight forwarders in Nigeria and freight forwarders globally.”
On fear of people losing their jobs as a result of digitization, he submitted that “Lack of digitization is causing us disadvantage because most of the freight forwarding jobs done here are done by the foreigners. The important thing is that the indigenes should rise up and meet the standard because those who want to patronize you are global players. So, they will only patronize those who are also global freight forwarders. So, if you are playing local, you won’t get anything and when you get digitized, you see more opportunities, when you don’t get digitized, you will only see what your narrow eyes can see. Anytime, anyone tries to digitalize, he will see more opportunities.”
Speaking on Business Integrity, Mr. Olusoji Apampa of the Convention on Business Integrity (CBI) noted that the intervention on the Convention on Business Integrity was to promote the adoption of the Standard Operating Procedure that had been identified by the government agencies at the ports and to make the participants aware that there was a Grievance Reporting Mechanism and now, a Consequence Management Framework was also being developed.
Apampa pointed out that the stakeholders would see with time, each of the agencies developing their own compliance department to make sure that the rank and file understand that the government was serious about the officials following the Standard Operating Procedure adding that without that, trade in Nigeria cannot increase, the throughput in the port cannot increase, revenue for government cannot increase so long as officials were bottlenecks and they were competitors to the government on collection of revenues.
According to him, “We focus on the maritime industry, the entire maritime industry has government department that interface with them whether they are doing vessel clearing or you are doing cargo clearing or you are doing both. So, it is mostly the same agencies. You will meet NAFDAC; you will meet customs and so on. Yes, it is only the vessel clearing that will meet the Immigration but you have NDLEA, you have DSS, they are all there. It is the same and if they don’t follow Standard Operating Procedure, it will cost you more in both time and expense.
“So, if you cannot predict the time and the expense it will take you to clear your cargo at the port, then, we are not there yet. All other ports around the world, the forward looking ports, those are the thing that you have. Their Standard Operating Procedures are very transparent, the procedures are consistently applied and you will predict how long it will take you to clear your cargoes and how much it will cost you. But those are the measures of efficiency in the ports. So, we are pushing to get that happen also in Nigeria.”
On how long it would take Nigeria achieve this, he said, “I don’t know but I know how long it has taken us so far. It has taken us from 2012 to this point, to get to a point where 154 visits, that you only have 26 that you want to challenge where people are asking for bribes and in all those cases, 24 of those cases resolved same day without paying. So, that is progress for Nigeria, Nigeria should be proud and because of this work, Ghana is now looking at how Nigeria is achieving this, Ghana is interested, Egypt is interested, Ukraine, India and Argentina. Five countries have indicated their interest to work with Shippers’ Council in Nigeria to see how this is being achieved.”
Photo: The Registrar, Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN), Barr. Samuel Nwakohu.
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