…Votes to end Webb Fontaine’s monopoly
The Association of Registered Freight Forwarders Nigeria, AREFFN has knocked the segregated, individual approach adopted by the freight forwarders and associations against the recurring customs server downtime at the Apapa and Tincan Island Ports which often times frustrate trade and add to the cost of doing business, saying that the approach cannot help.
The National Secretary of AREFFN, Ichie Frank Obiekezie who stated this in a chat with our correspondent in Lagos recently argued that freight forwarders could only get the federal government’s attention and indeed, the attention of the tech company providing the service to customs, Webb Fontaine when they come together irrespective of their associations and declare a two day or three days withdrawal of service from the port.
Obiekezie further called for the breaking of the Webb Fontaine’s monopoly by engaging one or two other service providers to handle Apapa and Tincan Island command independently, that way, the server could not be down simultaneously at the two commands thereby stalling businesses.
His words, “This individual, segregated approach by freight forwarders and associations cannot help. If all the freight forwarders and associations can come together and say for the next two days or three days, nobody should go to the port because there’s nothing to do, because once the server is down, nothing happen, government will know about it and we will tell them what we want.
“Can’t that service be decentralized? Can’t we bring other companies onboard? Government can decide that for Apapa port, it is this company and for Tincan port, it is this company so that even if there’s a problem in Tincan, Apapa will be working and if there’s problem in Apapa, Tincan will be working. But sometimes you find out that when it happens, it happens almost everywhere.
“How can you be talking about server downtime at this time? So, I don’t know why the government has continued to tolerate that and majority of Nigerians are not aware of this. If you have nothing to do with the port, you may not know but indirectly, the consumer bears the cost at the end of the day because when this thing happens, shipping companies and terminals don’t bother themselves whether you come and take your container or not, what they care about is when you come, this is how much your consignment has accumulated and you cannot go if you don’t pay it.
“So, let the freight forwarders come together and decide that this thing is killing their business and let them have a united action. Why nothing has happened is that the energy they are bringing forth as individuals, organizations and associations has not been enough to push government to do something.”
Asked if withdrawal of service would bring solution to the problem, he said, “Withdrawal of service, most of the time, is always the last resort when other measures have failed. What other measures other than making representation to the government which some people have been doing individually without coming together. The entire freight forwarders can petition the National Assembly.
“The option of court could be exploded but we have to bring in our legal Adviser to review and look at the Act or the terms of engagement for Webb Fontaine. It’s only when they have done that that they could advise us on what to do even though we know that court option is not always the best option in Nigeria not because it is not inherently good but because of the slow pace of adjudication at courts and when you talk about shipping, shipping is a time sensitive business.
“The best option is put pressure on the government and let them know. For instance, if all freight forwarders can put together what they have lost in a day or two or three of server downtime, and bring them together, and we look at the figure, and then present them to the government, saying, this is what we and the economy in general have lost in three days, I believe that no matter whoever is powering this Webb Fontaine, the shear weight of this economic loses is presented may force the government in power to have a rethink.
“We must come together and address it as a common problem. We can’t be dissipating energy in different directions.
The AREFFN National Secretary further observed that this incessant server downtime which kills the freight forwarders’ business is the kind of thing that the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria, CRFFN should be interested in as according to him, the development invariably affect it’s revenue drive.
“And this is the kind of thing that the CRFFN has to be interested in. What is happening to the people we are regulating? They are not regulating us only on training and collection of fees, they should be interested in how seamless this business we are doing is, from where we get money to pay for the POF because the less business in the port, the less POF to be collected.
“And even if at the end of the day the server comes up, we pay these demurrage and we pay POF, at the end of the day, the average freight forwarder goes home with nothing. People don’t know that the higher the cost of doing this business, the less that comes into the coffers of the freight forwarder”, he said.
On silence on the part of Webb Fontaine, he said, “The most annoying of it all is that they are not even responding. It’s like these people that are talking, we have no business with them, they didn’t give us this job. They should come out and explain why this is happening and when it will stop or this is what will happen when it happens. If they take charge of terminal and shipping charges when this happens, we may not bother ourselves too much.
“But because of their negligence and inefficiency, the average importers and freight forwarders suffer immensely. Most importers and freight forwarders now borrow money to do their job.”
Photo: Ichie Frank Obiekezie, National Secretary, AREFFN.
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