Freight Forwarders Unhappy with Events in CRFFN, As Aniebonam Wants Govt to Place Freight Forwarders Under Trade Ministry
By Francis UgwokeFounder, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Dr. Boniface Aniebonam , is bitter over events in the Council for Registration of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN), saying several years of efforts of industry practitioners are being destroyed.
Aniebonam regretted that freight forwarders were under the Ministry of Transportation, wishing that the industry practitioners should have been under the Ministry of Trade and Investments.
His anger is that freight forwarders have been treated unfairly under the Ministry of Transport particularly in respect of the CRFFN and the objectives of its estalishment by founding industry practitioners.
The NAGAFF founder recalled the many years of efforts to have in place CRFFN, expressing dismay that the role of the Trade Ministry as far as the regulatory agency is worrisome.
Speaking to SHIPPING DAY, Aniebonam while commenting on reports about allegation of large scale fraud being perpetrated in the Council described the situation as unfortunate for such a professional regulatory agency.
He said that in all that has been reported about alleged wrong doings in the Council, the Ministry appears to have kept sealed lips.
According to him, the position of the Ministry of Transport by choosing to keep mum was not the best as it would be negative in moving the Council forward.
He said that the idea of making CRFFN as an agency of government was not the best as the targeted objective of the Council has been affected as a result.
On the plans by the serving members of the Governing Board of the Council to remain in office after the expiration of their tenure, Anibenam said such plan will fail.
He hinted of plans to stop the Council members from seeking tenure elongation illegally.
It was gathered that some practitioners have concluded plans to stop the Council members through legal process.
The alleged plan by Council members is to amend the CRFFN Act which currently entitles them for only one tenure.
Incidentally, the Coronavirus pandemic made it impossible for them to achieve this before their tenure expired some months ago.
CRFFN has been under knocks by othr industry practioners, including the immediate past chairman of the Council, Governing Board of the Council Fwdr Aaree Hakeem Olanrewaju.
Olanrewaju had accused the management and board members of lack of direction for the good corporate objective of the regulatory agency.
In August this year, he pointed out that for a management and board which kicked-off in 201 to now begin the process of enthroning a new professional qualification for members at the end of their tenure was suspicious.
He said the expectation from practitioners was for the Council to release election timetable instead of the notice , “flyers in circulation being a notice for all members to register themselves properly by possessing the mandatory qualifications”.
According to him, this is even moreso since the Council was yet to deny allegations that its board members were planning to remain in office after their tenure expired since July 2020.
He condemned the coercion of practitioners into possessing mandatory qualification while the real issue was left unattended to.
Similarly, the immediate former President of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) , Prince Olayiwol;a Shittu is also not happy with CRFFN, saying the Council has failed to work because it has been hijacked by the government.
He argued that having been hijacked CRFFN , government should have been able to fund the agency instead of adopting illegal ways.
He said the idea to remain in office by Council members whose tenure has expired was mainly to benefit from the Port Operating Fees (POF).
Equally, he said, those in CRFFN were not interested in taking advice from practitioners on the best way forward.
Shittu had in an earlier exclusive interview with SHIPPIGN DAY spoken about the CRFFN:
He said, “CRFFN has been hijacked and made a parastatal of the Government. All Government parastatals today, forget about the denial of the immediate DG of NIMASA when I met him in Abuja, he was saying, we are not like them, they all have target, both official and personal target. Quote me anywhere—both NPA, NIMASA have targets, even the minister, Amaechi said it, that the Ministry alone can produce half of the budget of Nigeria-not to talk of FIRS, Finance, when you give somebody a target and he is struggling to meet government target, he must be meeting his own target, it is natural. When somebody has to use his/her discretion to determine whether you have complied with government regulation otherwise it will cause you this. He is determining the fate of that operation, he must think of himself, because the average Nigerian will say: I know you are working for the government, but this amount too much for government now!, if we pay it now, they will share it in Abuja, “make I give you this, make we pay this, make me self get this one”. That is how it is being done. Talking about CRFFN, the reason why they are not focused, from Mike Jukwe, is because once you give them good advice, they turn you to enemy. I know several times when he had issues with Dr. Aniebonam, when the man (Aniebonam) got too tired with their nonsense, he will just throw one bomb, and they will now be calling from there, but me I don’t have stomach for that. As soon as I left office, I decided to leave them. CRFFN business is training, is not for them to run a training institution, they are supposed to accredit schools that will take charge of training freight forwarders in all the fields relevant in the maritime industry . That is their job. Like COREN, you can’t have a University that wants to do an engineering course, and they are not accredited by COREN. It is because of that interest in money they started in a wrong footing, part of the problem I had with Jukwe, one of the reasons I said rather than to be counted among these people, let me resign. They were receiving budget from government, area of operations of freight forwarder, we know land borders is part of it, but how many goods go out of Nigeria through the land border? Even the goods that are coming in through the land border, are their documentation at par with seaports. We told them if they might have offices, let them put it on zonal basis so that their expenses can be accommodated by their budget. But what did you see, offices all over, CRFFN now has staff, even you will be asking what do they need all this people for. It now became, “ na we we, employ my brother now”, you continue to hear that. SO what do I bring in there, when that money is no longer enough, they must be looking for ways to meet it up. That is why you hear stories about Ports Operating Fees (POF). Ooh-it is going to be for training people. All the training we have been having since we do this business, we pay from our pocket. Nigerians are ready to pay. If that becomes part of requirements for you to remain in business, you will pay to go for training. But you say, no, we will do training, I am just telling you why they are not getting it right. When going for POF, you know recently, they wanted to do like all these agbero that stay in the road to collect money, I mean, we have gone beyond that level. I want to tell you honestly, if there in honesty, if CRFFN wants to generate money, whether to sponsor people for travelling abroad or going for same training here, assuming they went to do that, what do they do, let government put it among the payment that goes along with customs duty. Just like we have ETLS, CISS- they go under different headings. The money is warehoused in Central Bank, and you now make a budget requesting for that money to be used. You go through due diligence. Not for you to say, you will go online. I got a job, I don’t even know how I am going to go about the job, I don’t even know whether I am going to make something or not, I go online, you pay through such cumbersome exercise. The reason why they don’t want to go the way they should have gone is because there is no way they can touch the money. And that is why those who are in the council today don’t want to leave there, talk of tenure extension. Say, COVID, we did not do enough because of COVID. Buhari that is not even doing enough, 2023, he will say he is not going because COVID has eaten part of his tenure.
“For POF, what do you need it for is the question you will ask. Is your budget adequate? Can you talk to government and see whether they can increase your budget to accommodate your needs not your excesses because the number of staff they have today are excesses, salaries, allowances and all those things they are taking are at par with bigger government agencies, like salaries in NNPC. But if they decide, let it go through the Govt means of collection. All the SON, they have the way you pay their money, it goes into government purses. Why can’t they do that? If they do that, people will say,” fine”, because they have become government collection. But they are now saying if it is government collection, it will add more to the cost of doing business, because Government is collecting it now, but if you are collecting it yourself, does it not add to the cost of doing business?”
The League of Maritime Editors and Publishers had written the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabimiala, over a shoddy oversight function carried out by the immediate past House Committee on Ports, Harbour and Waterways (PHW) on the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) early last year, demanding a fresh probe to unravel the truth.
The League had also called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to make public its investigations on the allegation of wanton diversion of funds through capital projects budgetary appropriation in three consecutive and successive years in CRFFN which has both physical and documentary evidences circulating in private and public circles, to exonerate itself from the allegation of compromise.
The League was particularly worried that the former members of the House Committee on PHW failed Nigerians and the maritime sector over the way and manner they conducted a probe on the Council’s activities and projects executed in the past by certifying a fraudulent process free of malfeasance.
The League recalled that members of the House Committee on PHW had invited the management of CRFFN to an Investigative Hearing session chaired by Hon. Ossy Chinedu Prestige, a forum where concerns on financial and administrative infractions in most of the projects executed by the CRFFN management were raised.
Afterwards, the House had mandated its members in the Committee to investigate the allegations, an assignment that was concluded in May last year.
But the League gathered that during the probe, the House Committee members were simply given a handout or deceived on the different status of the projects which were claimed to be under 80-90 percent completion, an assertion which was allegedly discovered to be false.
The League wanted the Speaker of the House of Representatives to assign another Committee to undertake a serious probe on the status of the buildings or capital projects, among others that have been executed by the Council in the past few years for the stakeholders in the maritime industry and indeed other Nigerians to know the truth.
The League accused members of the then Committee of having been heavily compromised on their national assignment, adding that if a new probe is not instituted, the freight forwarding industry which is being regulated by the Council will suffer.
The League added that the probe has even become very necessary as the same former House Committee approved other fraudulent projects worth over N100 million in questionable manner in the 2019 budget.
The League said its investigation showed that the claim on the projects executed in some states was a big lie that will shock the industry when the truth is revealed.
According to the group, members of the Council who were elected early last year have already gone round the places where the projects were sited but were compelled to keep sealed lips over their findings, one of the reasons the new House leadership needs to intervene in the matter.
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