The call for a commercial port regulator has turned out be a focal point for the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF).
The NAGAFF National President, Chief Eugene Nweke, while addressing journalists after a closed-door session of the association’s National Executive Meeting held penultimate weekend in Lagos, said that the association is resolved to join forces with port stakeholders who are solidly behind the call for the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) to play the role of the nation’s commercial port regulator.
He said that the lack of a commercial regulator in the nation’s port system is the causative agent of the lapses recurrent in its port operations.
“We cannot continue to wait indefinite for the government who are not willing from all indications to evolve a process that will bring about a regulator therefore we want to align forces with other key stakeholders who believe more can be achieved in the maritime industry if Shippers’ Council metamorphoses to be the national port commercial regulator,” he said.
The NAGAFF boss also spoke about the role of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) as one critical factor in repositioning the practice of freight forwarding in Nigeria for better.
He said: “There is need to embrace; there is need to cooperate; there is need to align ourselves with and subject ourselves to the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria. There has always been issue of one person’s interest or the other but that should not overrule the generality’s common interest. That common interest is that a regulator is here to instill what we call a professional code of conduct. A regulator is here to say this is the performance indicator; this is what you have to do at any given time. The era of collecting money from a client and going away is all over. Today if you commit any crime we remove your practicing license, deregister you and send you to jail. That is what the Act says and that should be implemented so those who are beneficiaries to status quo ante should have a rethink because the rule of change is here. We are under a regulatory regime and there can’t be any compromise.”
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