Fresh indications have emerged that the five registered freight forwarding associations under the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) are working to ensure that the council remains independent of the Ministry of Transportation.
By design, media source learnt that the promulgators of the CRFFN never planned it to be a government agency, but to be a professional body regulating activities of freight forwarders.
One of the leaders of CRFFN, Dr. Boniface Aniebonam, who is the founder of National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), disclosed that sensitisation is ongoing for freight forwarders to remove CRFFN from the transport ministry.
“It is most unfortunate that we found ourselves under the supervision of the Transportation Ministry. The Ministry has a lot of parastatals under it, and they are struggling to add CRFFN to it. This is not even an agency of the government or a parastatal. For obvious reasons, the law of the land is in default and it is being administered with impunity.
“Definitely, we would go for the removal of CRFFN from the Transportation Ministry. For now, we are sensitising people for them to know that if we do not leave the transport Ministry, we are going nowhere, especially now that money is involved, the issue of POF is a serious business, section 6 of the CRFFN Act tells us how to raise funds and administer the council, the POF falls under this purview”
“When you look at the volume of money involved, the attention of the government has been brought there. It is only the National Assembly that can intervene on this matter. Recall that we are still in court over this issue, and we would take it up to the Supreme Court, “ Aniebonam stated.
The NAGAFF founder argued that the CRFFN Registrar is an appointee of the council board, which is administered by an elected member of the freight forwarders, being a core practitioner; hence, it cannot be subjected to government control.
Aniebonam also spoke on the coming elections into the governing council of CRFFN, which has generated a lot of controversies.
According to him, if the transportation ministry comes out with any election guideline different from the 6:6:1:1:1 sharing formula as agreed by the registered associations, the associations would pull out of the election and direct all members to withdraw their services from the port.
