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The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has opposed the 35% Practitioners Operating Fee (POF) sharing formula reached by agents and freight forwarders during a recent stakeholders meeting with the Minister of Transportation, Rt Hon. Rotimi Amaechi.
NAGAFF revealed this in a press release, maintaining that the associations has no legal right to vote over the disbursement of the POF.
“We wish to state for emphasis, that we are at home with many of the decisions reached at the parley, except POF resolutions which to us, appears as trying to amend an extant law through the back door etc.”
“To us, what happened at the Minister’s meeting with stakeholders, including CRFFN Accredited Associations, where the issue of “declarant” which is unknown to law in this circumstance, is now incorporated into the sharing of the POF, is tantamount to amending a law procedurally passed by the National Assembly. This is completely alien to all the discussions leading to the present scenario”, NAGAFF said.
NAGAFF also claimed to “have it on good authority that the original Committee’s report only suggested 65% to CRFFN and 35% to individual freight forwarders and not a declarant.”
Meanwhile, the association commended the Transport Minister for the proposed introduction of biometric identity cards for port access from January 1st, 2017.
“We agree that measures should be put in place to ward off terrorist attacks at or check unscrupulous people from accessing our ports environment, but who would be in charge of this process? How realistic is the January 1st kick-off date if the processes hasn’t started?” Aniebonam said doing a parley with journalists.
However, NAGAFF advised that freight forwarders whose names are in the register of freight forwarders of Nigeria domiciled with the CRFFN should automatically be accredited to enter the port to do their legitimate businesses.
“The onus is on the Council to compile the register of freight forwarders and handover to the authority for implementation”, NAGAFF said.
The association also noted that the Chairman of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) must be an elected person who is a freight forwarder and whose name is in the register.
NAGAFF also lamented that the CRFFN Council is yet to be constituted three years after the first Council tenure expired.
