Many non-professionals are in freight forwarding ready to pick anything -CRFFN

Prince Adeyinka Bakare is a member of the recently inaugurated Governing Council of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) and also the President General of the National Association of Freight Forwarders and Air Consolidators (NAFFAC). In this chat with nigeriamaritime360.com, he spoke on what should be done ahead of the collection of Practitioners Operations Fee (POF), how the five registered associations under CRFFN should work together to flush out foreign dominance of freight forwarding in Nigeria. According to hom, if the right atmosphere is created, freight agents will be glad to pay the fee.

Excerpts.

Some freight forwarding practitioners are currently languishing in prison custodies across the nation for various offences, what are you doing to help your members?

Let us be honest with ourselves, a lot of our people are doing a whole lot of things and we need to lecture ourselves and give orientation. We have a lot of people that are not professionals in this job, some are coming into the business just to put food on their tables and they are ready to pick anything anywhere, they don’t have offices, they have nothing to lose but let me be honest with you, in every profession, they are there. We have quack doctors parading themselves as doctors so also are fake lawyers in law profession. So, we are not going to have hundred percent freight forwarders in the business but the Act that established CRFFN makes it clear that freight forwarding issues should be treated by CRFFN itself, that is why in CRFFN, we have investigation committee, tribunal committee and all sorts to investigate issues and give verdict on issues that have to do with freight forwarding but ignorantly, a lot of people don’t know that so they take every contract of agreement and carriage to police station and to court.

But I think with orientation, lectures, people will be aware of what needs to be done. I think we can take it up from there. Until the Council begins work, there is little or nothing any singular person can do to solve that.

How have you been working with other agencies to rid the profession of foreigners?

It is a work in progress, we are already doing that. You know there are five of us, we are already talking but you know it takes time to lobby a lot of them like the Presidents, BOT chairmen, the deputies and all of them like that to agree and to come to table with you but I am very sure in a very short time, we are going to come out with a single communique and address some issues. We have quite a whole lot of issues to address and we will surely do that. We thank God the Council is on board too.

What responses are you getting from your negotiations so far? Do you see light at the end of the tunnel?

Yes, there is positive response because what we are bringing on board is not for me, it is not for NAFFAC, not for individual but what most of us are experiencing, almost every one of us is seeing and going through it, so it is not about personal gain, it is for everyone. They can see that we actually mean well.

Some stakeholders have said that NAFFAC, AREFFN and NCMDCLA do not meet with the requirements of CRFFN accreditation because you don’t have chapters in all the ports in Nigeria. What is your take on this?

The greatest problem we have in this country as a whole is that everybody has to write their own history and in the bid of doing that, they make things to benefit them alone, they want people think they are alone there.

For the records, NAFFAC has been in existence since 1985 in fact, since 1983 but became registered with Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) in 1985 and they had their first chapter at the national level in 1987, they had their Calabar chapter which still exists even though they don’t make noise. NAFFAC has had a chapter in Apapa in Eleganza building as far back as in the 90s. NAFFAC has chapters in Port Harcourt, Onne as far back as 2001 but because they thought the chapters are not making noise, does not mean they don’t have chapters. So, I don’t understand the criteria they are talking about. If NAFFAC does not have the criteria, it would not be in CRFFN and they should not forget that it was not only five associations that came to CRFFN but a whole lot of them but it took them a lot of pains to see what each association has across the nation in terms of structure, register and antecedent before they were accredited. So, if we don’t have what it takes, CRFFN would not have accredited only five. So, I don’t see any substance in saying we don’t have what it takes to be part of CRFFN. Honestly speaking, I think we are good where we are and we are prepared to move forward.

What are the strategies you have on ground to empower your members in terms of training?

The first thing we did was to try as much as possible to renew our membership as in the register of our members with CRFFN and I also have in mind that NAFFAC is a corporate registered association that only registered corporate bodies and because of that, the number of corporate bodies we registered is limited. As it is now, if I register my company, am registering only one person but I should be able to register three of my staff who could at any time represent the office at any meeting. But we might move away from that because everyone we have here are all freight forwarders and registered with CRFFN and if they are registered with CRFFN and have their CRFFN numbers, why am I not bringing them into NAFFAC. This factor has been limiting NAFFAC in terms of number, we are seriously looking at that to expand and probably amend our constitution to accommodate individuals and corporate bodies just like is in the Act of CRFFN and go by the Act.

Introduction of Practitioners Operations Fee (POF) is coming up again. Do you think it will succeed this time around?

The problem we have now is not POF; the problem we are having is the issue we have at hand. If we could come out and tackle the issue of the roads, the issue of transportation, the issue of terminal charges, the issue of shipping company charges, unnecessary demurrage, unnecessary detention. Those are the issues that we are facing that are very paramount that we need to tackle now. If these could be tackled, one or two thousand naira is nothing. Someone that is paying forty-five thousand naira as terminal charges and if you can fight it down to thirty thousand naira, if you ask such a person to pay one thousand naira with the thirty thousand naira to make it thirty one thousand naira, I think such a person will be grateful paying us without stress. We need to fight for those things first before and by the time POF is introduced, everybody at the land, sea or air borders will be happy to embrace it. We need to do those things that need to be done first. I think we need to sit down and do what is right.

The Nigerian Shippers’ Council is saddled with the responsibility of regulating the port and the CRFFN has now come to stay as a regulator, don’t you think they will be having clash of interest?

No. The Shippers’ Council is regulating the shipping companies, NPA is the landlord of the port but we are traders here. Have you ever looked at it that if customs should come out to declare that it made a hundred billion naira today, they made the money through the freight forwarders but are we recognised in that? If NPA is coming to say it made 20 percent higher income than the previous year, they are making it through us; we carry this money to them. We know where the shoes pinch more than them because it is not easy canvassing an importer to give you a consignment to clear. You send mails, make calls and all that and you pay demurrage because the truck cannot access the terminals, you renew your terminal charges and sometimes the terminal is shut down and trucks are not allowed into the terminals for twelve hours and if you eventually get in, they tell you that your charge is expired two hours ago. Who bears the cost? So, it has nothing to do with what Shippers’ Council is doing or what NPA is doing. They have two separate functions entirely.

What do you think can be done to address the issue of overtime cargoes at the ports?

In looking for solution to a problem, you have to first look at the causes of the problems. I heard Apapa saying they have about 2,000 containers in the ports. What is the cause? And majority of the containers are export containers, they are perishable, they are time-bound. So, if you are having such containers in the port, why don’t you come to stakeholders and have one on one discussion with them over why it is happening and causes of the delay and see if there is anywhere they could be of assistance because the customs is not making any profit from it but only making the terminal owners richer because the terminals are charging demurrage on them on daily basis. In addition, the container will get to the destination spoilt and create bad image for the country and majority of them will be returned back as bad cargoes; the owners cannot go to bank because majority of them is cash against document or letter of credit while some get to the destination before payment is made. These are the conditions and the things they should also look at and assist because this is what Nigeria needs because majority of them are exports; they are sources of employment to Nigeria. They should look beyond documentation they are talking about to look at how to assist the people to move the cargoes so that things can go smoothly.

2000 containers are not taking a small space in the terminals and you can imagine if APMT is charging N750 per day on each of the containers and they are spending three to four months inside the port, imagine how many billions they are giving APMT without doing anything.

They have to look at ways to help out because if you keep to your right all the time, you will not know when you will lose your left. They could help the exporters to make sure that as they are coming, they are boarding the vessel and I also know that the shipping lines are complaining because their containers are lying unused in the port for months.

What will be your suggestion to the CRFFN in eliminating quacks from the system?

Let me use the words of the minister, where things are done properly, you can’t even enter the port without being a registered member of CRFFN and as long as you are a registered member of CRFFN which automatically makes you a professional, you don’t need port pass where the port is secured, you go into the port with your code.

Do you think this is achievable because this is not the first time such measure has been suggested?

It is achievable. One of the areas you can achieve it is when you look at Nigerian ports, there are too many offices inside the port and what are their functions? We don’t need all the offices inside the port, they are supposed to be outside and by that, and we will have limited number of people going inside the port. I don’t see anything that is not achievable; it takes the determination of the government.

How is POF collection achievable at the airport?

The same way it is achievable at the land and seaports. Nobody is going on the roads to ask for POF, or stop containers to come and pay, we are not going to do that. We are going to deal directly with the lines.

The minister said the POF was for the government and not for the associations. What is your take on this?

He didn’t say that. He even said if he had enough time, he would have taken the CRFFN Act back to the National Assembly to reduce the number of presence of government appointees on the council that it should at least be 80% professionals and 20% government appointees. That means that the Council belongs to the practitioners and whatsoever we collect, if it is 20% that is due for the government, it will be given to the government. Those are his words; he did not say the POF is for the government.

Don’t you think the sharing formula among the registered associations is going to cause another problem?

I don’t think so. One thing that I want to believe is that this has been concluded for a very long time and it is not going to be by the size of each association. In fact, majority of the funds are going into training.