By Kenneth Jukpor
The kickback against the collection of Practitioners Operating Fees (POF) has taken another twist as Africa Association of Professional Freight Forwarders and Logistics of Nigeria (APFFLON) has filed a legal suit against the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN).
MMS Plus sighted the document with Suit Number: FHC/L/C3/374/2021 filed on Wednesday, March 10, 2021, against the respondents which include CRFFN and its Registrar, Governing Council Chairman, Minister of Transportation and the Attorney General of the Federation.
Meanwhile, two members of the House of Representatives, Hon. Patrick Asadu and Hon. Garba Datti Mohammed, are sponsoring a bill to give legal backing to the collection of POF.
CRFFN leadership is believed to have adopted this approach in a bid to overcome the growing disapproval of the POF regime by freight agents and the port community.
Efforts to get more information, on the new case filed has been futile as the leadership of APFFLON didn’t want to dabble into the legal matter as a date is yet to be fixed by the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos Judicial Division.
Findings, however, revealed that most freight forwarders kick against the collection of POF for reasons including; the absence of board members at CRFFN, gross mismanagement of funds and resources by the CRFFN management, extra cost and delays in cargo clearance.
The administrative inefficiency on the part of the CRFFN has also been condemned as it has failed to institute professionalism in the freight forwarding subsector of the maritime economy.
Absence of professional scale of charges in the freight forwarding profession, and the non-competitiveness in the system are also queries against the agency.
In a recent press release, CREFFPON noted some of the refusal of terminal operators, especially the Tin Can Island Container Terminal (TCIT), to issue the Terminal Delivery Order (TDO) to the forwarders in the course of their professional quest and engagements to promptly facilitate imports processing, clearance and delivery.
POF collection has been labeled as an act that will cause delays in cargo processing resulting to additional demurrages and storages to the profits advantage of the terminal operators and shipping companies, while adding to the cost of using Nigerian ports.
The CRFFN hasn’t done much to boost its integrity with recurring sums quoted in budgets of the last three years as ongoing projects, while failing its obligations to local vendors and international annual dues to International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA) despite budgetary provisions for the commitments.
