SINGLE WINDOW NAGAFF queries Customs, ANLCA over CRFFN

While commending the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) for pursuing the establishment of a Single Window Environment for faster and cheaper trade facilitation, Founder, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Dr Boniface Aniebonam, has, however, frowned at the absence of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) in the list of participating regulatory agencies in the Nigeria Single Window (NSW) Initiative. 

Aniebonam, speaking with SHIPS & PORTS DAILY in his office, stressed that the relevance of freight forwarders in the NSW initiative is undermined without the presence of the freight forwarders regulatory body, CRFFN.
“The Single Window initiative is an effort in the right direction but then I’ve seen an immediate loophole and am talking about the relevance of freight forwarders. The Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria is not mentioned among the regulators and if that is the case then it is quite a very big loophole and I hope they address this is as fast as possible,” he stated.

Aniebonam also complained that CRFFN has not only been, according to him, undermined by the NCS as a relevant stakeholder in actualising of the NSW vision for a better trading environment, but that its relevance has also been allegedly trivialised by the Association of Nigeria Licenced Customs Agents (ANLCA).
“It’s most unfortunate and I just hope that my colleagues in the other sister-association will understand what CRFFN seeks to put in place in favour of practitioners. Licencing regulation by the Customs is all about agency work, whereas CRFFN is about professionalism, about professional conduct.

That means that if you are an accredited member of CRFFN, you are a professional. It is only an individual that can acquire skill and knowledge and be certified by the Council, whereas in the licencing regulation of the Customs it’s a corporate entity! What am trying to say is that you cannot conduct yourself as a professional if you are an agent to somebody! The agent in this regard is talking about licensing regulation, because it is only corporate body that is licenced by the Customs. But if you are an individual licencee, then you’ll be looking at a situation where you are carrying out responsibilities that are personal. That is what Customs call safe clearing. I just believe that with time they’ll understand that there is need for us to take a place in the comity of professionalism in this country, and that is what CRFFN stands to propagate.”

The NAGAFF Founder urged the ANLCA National President, Prince Olayiwola Shittu, to educate and enlighten his members on the need to seek for professional conduct in their business, not necessarily as corporate bodies, but as professional freight forwarders.