The President, Shippers Association of Lagos State (SALS), Rev. Dr. Jonathan Nicol has said that the woes staring the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) in the face should be blamed on the first members of the Governing Council of the Council.
Nicol who was speaking exclusively to Primetime Reporters in Lagos noted that the first council members should also be blamed for not having another governing council members for CRFFN since their tenure ended in 2012 as a result of the fact that they had so much problem during their tenure.
He said,” Yes! The issue now is that those saying this were members of the defunct council and you will hold all of them responsible for RFFN not having a Board in place. When they had the Board, they were having so much problems. It is like the CRFFN was almost swallowed by the governing council of that same body and I think this time, the Registrar is a little bit careful”.
“The Registrar has the right by his position to direct the affairs of the CRFFN in such a way that nobody should regulate it. It is a body that should regulate the associations and they are not having a Board in place because the people who acted as the governing council didn’t do so well”.
“So, it was like we have set up a body that is after oh, bring all what you have, let us share. So, this is why they are having problem. If they don’t have money on ground to share, then we would not have the problem of who is going to be in the governing council”.
He continued, “An association cannot take the whole seats in the governing council, that is where the problem came. So, if you have an association which says out of ten seats, it wants seven, it means it is a one party system, let me borrow that word”.
He argued that the same document that made one association a registered association was the same document that all the registered associations had therefore equal status should be given to all the registered associations in constituting the members of the governing council of the Council so as to bring balance adding that it was not only the associations that were required to have members in the governing council as the Act stipulated.
“So, what I expect CRFFN to do which I believe they will do is to be a referee to the associations’ election and they can suggest people into the Board and from each of the associations to make up the number. So, I think that is the best approach that will solve this problem bringing the election because the fisrt election they did, they ended up in court and someone who lost in the election had to go to court to stop the CRFFN. We shouldn’t do that”, he said.
