Chairman, Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN), Princess Vicky Haastrup, has lauded the renewed efforts of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN), to rid the nation’s ports of touts.
Haastrup, while receiving the Registrar/Chief Executive Officer of CRFFN, Sir Mike Jukwe, and his team of enforcement officials at her office last Thursday, said that the industry has been bastardised by the presence of those she described as nuisances who flaunt themselves as freight forwarders.
She expressed satisfaction that the freight forwarders regulatory body provides training programmes for its members, noting that this will bring about professionalism and instill discipline in the freight forwarding industry.
“One of the major problems that is militates against the growth of the industry is indiscipline! This is one industry that an agbero (a tout) can come and say he is a freight forwarder … We know them when they come into the terminal, they don’t do it right! They forge documents and they rip off their customers. We have even seen a situation where the letterhead of ENL was forged. The sanity that people like me has been shouting about, it will bring about that sanity,” she said.
She added: “I’ve often said that there ought to be a benchmark of who qualifies as a freight forwarder. Somebody who did not go to school or is a primary school certificate holder should not come to the port and say he is a freight forwarder! It is not done like that in other parts of the world!”
The STOAN Chairman assured CRFFN of the association’s maximum support, noting that she has longed for a positive change in the freight forwarding industry.
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