The Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) has described as fake news the statement credited to the President, Nigerian Institute of Freight Forwarders and Customs Brokers (NIFFCB), Dr. Zebulon Ikokide alleging that the letter from the Ministry of Finance endorsing the collection of the Practitioners’ Operating Fee (POF) is fake.
Ikokide had in an interview granted to some journalists in Lagos earlier in the week said, “I don’t agree actually that the Council (CRFFN) should collect any practicing fee and besides, it is wrong for them to come and tell the freight forwarders that the Minister of Finance wrote a letter to them.
“The Minister does not have the right to constitute or open up another agency to be collecting money for the federal government. Federal government had Customs and the Federal Inland Revenue Service, apart from these ones, nobody can constitute another financial revenue collector for the country.
“In actual fact, if EFCC should demand the letter, you may see a letter but can the Minister stand and agree that she wrote a letter? The Minister cannot do that unless CRFFN law is returned to the National Assembly for them to be approved as revenue generating organization. The letter (from the Ministry of Finance) is a fake letter because the Minister would not agree to sign that letter. Maybe a clerk in the Ministry wrote that letter and put it inside the papers that the Minister is signing and she will sign without knowing.”
He noted that if the letter is investigated, it would be found to be fake and the Minister would be in trouble for it.
However, speaking in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos yesterday, the Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of CRFFN, Barr. Samuel Nwakohu described the statements as fake news capable of inciting the freight forwarders against the Council while advising him to go back and read the Act establishing CRFFN very well in order to have better knowledge.
Nwakohu said, “I am not going to help him with his research, let him go back and read the Act. Let me help him a bit by referring him to Section 6 and he should read the whole of that, I believe that will help him.
“What do we benefit from concocting a letter? Nothing! The law is very clear on what we should do. For people who intend to resist POF, they are entitled to their views. Let him not also forget that it is a criminal offence to deliberately disseminate wrong information to members of the public, he should bear that in mind. POF has come stay, we will very soon flag off and for people like him, they need to sit down and have a change of mind.
“The information he has given is completely false, very misleading and punishable. We applied for that letter and if you stay a few minutes, we will show you the letter that we used to apply to the Ministry for it and we have been waiting and that letter came out on the 6th of January, 2020 and we commenced our sensitization programme on the 7th of January, 2020 in Lagos. I voluntarily gave it to the press, I didn’t hide it under the table, I gave it to them to take photographs, to read at the Rockview Hotels.
“Really, there are certain things that shouldn’t bother me and this is one of those things that I will not lose any sleep over. People like that; let him go and do his research very well, his interpretation of the law is completely out of place.”
On what could be the Dr. Ikokide’s motive in choosing to mislead the public, he said, “I wouldn’t want to know why he elects to do that. Whether he is a founding member (of CRFFN) or he came in between is neither here or there but his interpretation of the law as it stands varies from my own understanding of the law. I believe that he is completely out of the line.”
The Registrar however disclosed that he would use Dr. Ikokide as an example in order to deter people from disseminating misleading information as according to him, he would institute a case against him in this regard at the CRFFN Investigative and Disciplinary Tribunal for trial.
He added that Ikokide may stand to be deregistered as a member of CRFFN for deliberately disseminating wrong information to the members of the public.
Photo: Approval letter from the Federal Ministry of Finance listing POF receipt as one of the requirements for cargo exit at nation’s seaport.
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