National President, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Prince Olayiwola Shittu has accused members of the Concerned Registered Freight Forwarders Associations (CRFFA) of indebtedness to the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN).
Shittu disclosed this yesterday at a round table meeting with members of Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN).
The members CRFFA include National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF); Association of Registered Freight Forwarders of Nigeria (ARFFN); a faction of National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA) and the National Association of Air Freight Forwarders and Consolidators (NAFFAC).
Shittu said aside ANLCA that pays its yearly dues; no other association has fulfilled its financial commitment to CRFFN.
He said, “We pay our dues as an association and I can tell you that we are the only association that have paid out dues for two or three years to CRFFN.
“NAGAFF paid once and I can tell you that other associations – AREFFN, NCMDLCA and NAFFAC – have not paid any dues to the council.
“These associations that have not paid their annual dues are the ones crying more than the bereaved because of stomach infrastructure,” he said.
The ANLCA leader challenged CRFFN to explore other revenue generating avenues instead of focusing only on the collection of the contentious professional operating fees.
“We look at the Act setting up CRFFN. We saw that it had many areas of raising money. We pay for registration, pay for license that is renewable.
“At least they have been saying ANLCA is only one out of the five associations that was against the collection but the other four can go ahead with the collection if they can.
“We have written letters to CRFFN over our planned meeting with them but they have not obliged us. We hope they oblige us so that we can discuss our grievances,” he said.
He also advised CRFFN to grade membership of CRFFN according to roles and functions.
He said, “CRFFN has already created a lacuna by registering all associations even some that do not even meet the requirements of the council but they can correct this by putting all registered freight forwarding associations under NAGAFF and all Customs brokerage association under ANLCA to bring sanity into the system.”
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