The Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria has lamented the poor position of the country in global freight forwarding business.
The Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of the CRFFN, Samuel Nwakohu, described as unfortunate a situation where Nigeria occupied the 110th position out of 160 countries involved in freight forwarding in the world as of 2018.
Nwakohu, who made this observation while delivering a keynote address at a stakeholders’ meeting in Port Harcourt, expressed the need for Nigeria to address the challenges facing the freight and forwarding industry in order to improve her rating globally.
He stated that Nigeria should not be occupying the 110th position out of 160 countries, while countries like Cote D’Ivoire and Rwanda ranked 50th and 57th position respectively.
“Unfortunately, Nigeria is not fairing well among the comity of nations; being ranked 110 out 160 countries at the last count in 2018. The ranking says a lot about Nigeria and her freight forwarding industry.
“To assert our relevance, we must embrace efficiency of clearance process, improve quality of trade and transport related infrastructure like roads, ports, railroads and information technology, ability to track and trace consignments, etc.
“This is necessary especially when we observe that small countries like Cote’ D’Ivoire and Rwanda rank 50th and 57th positions respectively. This is certainly where we should be and Nigeria’s freight forwarding industry must brace and reposition as a matter of utmost urgency,” Nwakohu said.
On the issue of practitioners operating fees, the CRFFN registrar said that funds accruing from POFs were not meant for sharing or embezzlement, but to help in training practitioners.
Nwakohu explained that apart from adding to the revenue generated by the country, the funds would also be used to develop capacity of practitioners, adding that the regulatory body was projecting the sum N5bn as revenue to be made from POFs in 2020. He stated that there was no need for CRFFN practitioners to worry about their POFs, adding that such funds would always be used for the development of the industry.
