CRFFN Registrar expresses shock over freight forwarders’ shallow knowledge of trade facilitation

By ZION Olalekan

The Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) has charged Nigerian freight forwarders to embrace trade facilitation concept, even as he assured that the council is about to commence another round of capacity building of Freight forwarders.

Registrar of CRFFN, Dr. Samuel Nwakohu said that currently, most freight forwarders do not understand what trade facilitation is all about.

He stated this yesterday when he received the Managing Director of African Centre for Supply Chain (ACSC) Dr. Obiora Madu and his delegation.

He assured that the CRFFN is ready to partner ACSC to embark on another round of training and to ensure that the values which the centre stands for are impacted on both freight forwarders and CRFFN staff.

He said that capacity building for freight forwarders cannot be achieved without infrastructure.

The CRFFN Registrar said “I do not believe that at the moment it is there in our system, I don’t think my freight forwarders have embraced it, I don’t think most of them know about it, let alone embracing it, trade facilitation is something I am interested in and I would like the Freight Forwarders to embrace”

“Training of freight forwarders is one of our core mandate and we would continue from where the last administration stopped, for me it is a priority, and very soon with the help of people like Obiora Madu and other agencies we would begin training of freight forwarders”

On his part, Dr. Obiora Madu said Trade facilitation is key in the world now, adding that the concept is all about making life easier for the people who are doing trade, both in documentation, infrastructure and other angles.

According to him, Nigeria currently ranks low on the World Banks’ of ease of doing business as result of low performance in trade facilitation.

“Right now, our rating in the world bank conducive performance is very low and it is as a result of our low level trade facilitation
So, we came to ask for partnership as far as capacity is concerned”

“We are also here to present to him the industry report which is published by the African centre for supply chain
It is meant to create data and information for practitioners in the industry, we are also here to inform him that the industry report would be launched in Abuja in early May 2019”

“One area I would also want to be of assistance is the capacity for the freight forwarders, without the freight forwarding industry, there would be no implementation of trade, so bringing them up to speed in terms of capacity is very key, this has been an issue”

“We are here to congratulate the new registrar and chief executive officer and also explain to him some of the things that we do that is relevant to help the country”