CRFFN Act Amendment: Board Members Plan Tenure Elongation, Share of POF
• After 10 years CRFFN Act needs review, says RegistrarBy Francis Ugwoke
The serving members on the Governing Board of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) are currently planning tenure elongation for themselves, a source close to the Council has revealed.
A source told SHIPPING DAY that the board members were behind the planned secret public hearing in the National Assembly scheduled for May 12 and later May 18 that has been suspended indefinitely by the National Assembly.
The suspension followed the intervention of the leadership of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) and other notable freight forwarders who got a wind of the plan of board members .
The source said that the members were on a job of self seeking interest and also for those of the Ministry of Transport.
Particularly, the plan, among others, was to demand for an amendment of the two years tenure to four years with a caveat that it begins with them and all political appointees.
In addition, part of the amendment was that the board members should be entitled to some take-home from the Port Operating Fees (POF) collection.
As part of the bargain, the board members were enjoined to be part of the efforts to enforce the POF implementation in the ports.
Source said that the plan was also for the board members to accept in the amendment that government has the responsibility of appointing the Registrar of the CRFFN Council whose designation shall be Executive Secretary.
Government, as part of the arrangement is also to appoint the Chairman of the Council’s Governing Board instead of an electoral process as currently obtains in the Act.
However, they agreed on a proviso that the Governing Council members can elect a Vice Chairman as was the case in the last exercise.
The public hearing was planned to take place at a time that attendance to the public hearing would have been difficult because of the present coronavirus lockdown that has impacted negatively on interstate travelling for other industry stakeholders.
Board members, it was gathered had planned to quietly travel to Abuja on weekend with official vehicles for the public hearing as against others who would have suffered difficulties in travelling.
Concerns of industry stakeholders have been on why the areas of amendment have been kept secret by the Council.
But reacting to the allegation, the Registrar, Barrister Nwakohu Samuel said the public hearing was not in any way planned as a secret hearing.
Nwakohu disclosed that the hearing was to hold in March this year but was rescheduled because he was attending a burial ceremony of his late mother in PortHarcourt.
He added that it was later planned for May 12 and again moved to May 18 but was put off indefinitely because of the lockdown.
On the allegation that the Council members were planning tenure elongation, he denied this, but noted that it was only the Council that has such two years tenure.
According to him, it was not wrong to seek a review of the tenure from two years to four years, but added that whether it will benefit the present Council members or not was a matter of constitutional provision.
He argued that after 10 years, there was the need for the review of the CRFFN Act for the best interest of the freight forwarding practice.
Stakeholders who spoke to SHIPPING DAY under anonymity described the moves of the CRFFN board members as conspiracy, selfishness and abuse of professionalism.
They argued that what the board members need to know was that CRFFN is a professional regulatory agency established for the promotion of freight forwarding practice in Nigeria.
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