*As consultant gets 20% of collection
Vincent Toritseju
Lagos — THE Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarders in Nigeria, CRFFN today commenced the collection of the Practitioners’ Operating Fee, POF, with a view to growing the logistics industry.
Disclosing this in Lagos, Registrar of the Council Mr. Sam Nwakohu said that was one of the various resources of revenue for the Council adding that the collection commenced after several approval by the Federal Executive Council, FEC, and the Infrastructure and Concession Regulatory Commission, ICRC.
Nwkohu also said that ahead of the collection of POF, the Council has also concluded its integration with the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA and the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS so as to ease the collection of the fee.
He also disclosed that the Council met with the Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria, STOAN and solicitated the support of terminal operators for ease of payment of POF.
The Council boss stated that the reference number on the Bill of Lading was what will be used to exit cargoes from the ports after evidence of POF payment.
He said: “First and foremost, POF will start any moment from now, it will no longer be business as usual for industry practitioners.
“SWGlobal is not just for collection, it involvement with the Council has been approved by the FEC, they get twenty percent of the collection, not just for collection.
“They are our technical partners, we have been through a whole lot from inception, and there are things they are supposed to like training and re-training of freight forwarders, funding of most of our operations.
“They built the portal, they funded most of the integration we did, so it is not just for collection, it is a whole package that we have with them.”
Explaining further, Nwakohu said that what the Council was doing as regards to POF is fully backed by law adding any resistance will be dealt with accordingly.