Following the expiration of a three-week grace to ensure compliance, the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) has commenced the full implementation of collection of the Practitioners’ Operating Fee(POF) in all the nation’s seaports today, Wednesday, March 4th, 2020.
POF is a practicing fee payable by every freight forwarder as legally permitted. It is a condition for any cargo exit from the port and a means of regularizing membership of the Council, which is a condition for logging-in to the portal of CRFFN to pay.
The Council had on February 10,2020 started the collection of POF as a test-run on the system.
Speaking with MMS Plus in an exclusive chat, the Registrar and the chief executive officer of CRFFN, Barr. Samuel Nwakohu, confirmed that the Council had commenced full enforcement of the POF collection with enforcement agents to ensure full compliance.
According to him, the Council has a means of tracking cargoes, saying that “If you exit your cargo without payment we will know”.
The enforcement, the Registrar noted, was in phases starting with the seaports as the next phase would be the airports.
On how the POF will be collected, he restated that each account on the portal would have an e-wallet where one could keep funds aside, and in case of any issue, it could be reverted within 48hours.
A One-Time pass word (OTP) would be generated from the bank to enable account debit.
