POF: Industry Analyst urges Freight Forwarders to take responsibilities, retrieve what belongs to them from contractor
POF: Industry Analyst urges Freight Forwarders to take responsibilities, retrieve what belongs to them from contractor
By Ruth Sunday
Professional Associations in the maritime Industry have been called on to brace up and take over the collection of the Practitioners Operating Fee(POF), which was domicile with Associations before the enactment of Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) Act by the National Assembly ,
Chief Patrick Ogbo, a maritime analyst and practitioner who made the call in a statement he endorsed recently remarked that since the advent of CRFFN as a regulatory body in charge of welfare and well being , training and retraining of the Association members, financial development , professional ethics compliance, the expected returns from POF collections meant to position the freight Forwarders, in line with global best practice, has been a milage.
Chief Ogbo noted that the expected three trillion naira (N3tr.) collections from import and export cargoes from the ports and boarder posts have not been fully implemented.
Also, he continued, the operating fees from terminal operators, shipping companies, corporate bodies and other services providers in the industry are lying fallow .
“Associations who were components of the CRFFN should take back the collection of POF for a better collection of the expected revenue to the associations by extension to the Regulatory body.
“The Act establishing CRFFN provides that the council have the power to legislate on issues like this for the body and it becomes law, therefore the elected representatives of the Associations should move a motion to that effect so that the business of collecting the fees should be fully harnessed, upon the cancellation of the contract with S.W .Global”, Ogbo stated.
