CRFFN REGISTRAR, IGW
The Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) may currently not be finding it funny as far as the ports industry is concerned. It has been so since it was established in 2007. First, it was initially leadership issues in which freight forwarders fought against themselves to occupy the position of Chairman of the Board of the Council. Most of the elections were marred with irregularities that left a number of freight forwarders and their associations grumbling. For a long time, this affected the fortunes of the Council. It was not until the former Minister of Transport, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, was appointed that he made strong moves to address some of the issues. It was as if normalcy was achieved. A way of funding the Council was achieved with the introduction and effective collection of Practitioners Operating Fee(POF). Within the period Amaechi was in office, at least the CRFFN was able to collect POF using the strong political will of the former Minister who instructed the agencies to assist. The CRFFN also had it easy as it was covered by the budgetary provisions to take care of salaries of staff and other administrative costs. But it would appear that a lot has changed in the past few years. The POF is no longer being collected over a judicial matter that is yet to be resolved. Sources said that Council has been heavily affected in carrying out its development plans as far as the freight forwarding sector is concerned. This is against the dreams of the founding fathers of the Council. The strong belief is that there can be a reprieve for the Council with the leadership of the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy exerting their political will as a matter of intervention to save the situation. We therefore call on the Minister to rise to the occasion by getting all the aggrieved gladiators to a round table discussion as part of a strong move to settle out of court for the survival of CRFFN. There was a mission for establishing the CRFFN about 19 years ago, and this objective must not be allowed to die. As it is now, CRFFN can easily pay salaries of workers, but hampered by issues of adequate funds to carry out its other development programmes. With a strong workforce and mission of fulfilling other statutory obligations, the political will of the Minister is needed to ensure that the objective of establishing the agency is not derailed.
