Bello, Sarumi call for professionalism among Nigerian freight forwarders

Stakeholders have called for professionalism among Nigerian freight forwarders to reduce the rate at which indigenous freight forwarding practitioners lose jobs to their foreign counterparts.

Speaking on Monday in Lagos during the Book Presentation and Colloquium in honour of Prince Olayiwola Shittu @ 68, Adebayo Sarumi, former managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), said that several million tons of cargos enter Nigerian waters without Nigerian freight forwarders benefiting from clearing such goods from the ports.

Sarumi, who was the chairman of the event, listed such cargo to include project cargo, saying that cargo owners in most cases call on their foreign partners to clear such cargos without given the job to Nigerians.

He urged the freight forwarders to allow the Act of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarders in Nigeria (CRFFN) to work. He also called on freight forwarders to reduce the high level of personality clash and extreme unionism in the profession, which according to him, degrades the profession.

Hassan Bello, executive secretary of the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), who presented a paper on freight forwarding practise in Nigeria, identified lack of professionalism as the major hinderance to the growth of the profession in Nigeria.

“The freight forwarding practice in Nigeria has been accused of non professionalism due to lack of institutional framework. There is also lack of synergy among the freight forwarding associations and the regulating body, which is the CRFFN,” Bello said.

Bello, who acknowledged the role of freight forwarders in cargo clearance at the ports, said that movement of cargo from one point to another must be done with efficiency in line with global best practices, thus the need to professionalise the handlers of cargos.

To ensure effective regulation, Bello suggested that the associations must do away with touts and quacks, whose activities give bad image to the profession.

“Nigerian freight forwarders must be professionals and to achieve this, there is need to create freight forwarding institute regulated by National University Commission (NUC) for the training of practitioners,” he advised.

He also called for effective collaboration among players in the port industry to help grow and advance the course of port industry in Nigeria.   

AMAKA ANAGOR