Tinubu Rolling Out Deliberate Policies To Transform Economy- Igwe, CRFFN Registrar

Since inception, the Council for Regulation of Freight Forwarding (CRFFN) has been faced with several teething challenges which has led to the clamour and agitation for a key professional to be appointed as the Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of the council.

That prayer was answered in October 2024 when the Minister of Marine & Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola CON, approved the appointment of Mr. Kingsley Igwe as substantive Registrar/CEO for the Council.

Igwe, a thoroughbred, accomplished transportation and logistics professional with over 14 years of experience, well-known for advancing Nigeria’s logistics sector through innovation, regulatory excellence, and strategic collaboration with key stakeholders has been saddled with the responsibility of turning around the fortune of the agency to be at par with its sister agencies in the maritime industry.

He recently held his maiden media briefing with selected Maritime journalists where he enumerated the challenges facing the council and how he intends to go about solving them, BABAJIDE OKEOWO, The Matrix’s Editor was there. Excerpts

On How To Address Challenges Facing The Council

I think they are not very much to handle. It just only requires the requisite technicalities and technical understanding to be able to proffer solutions.

The insights, the instincts, and the clarity to the depth of the challenges And I couldn’t have just started. I took my time to study the problems. I’ve studied the problems, I’ve understood them.

These problems are normal in every organization that is trying to succeed. Problem of funding, finances, problem of personnel, problem of collaborations, collaborations, and especially the core mandate of the council, which has to do with professionalizing the practitioners, regulating them, the strategies, and making impact, most especially in the industry through this council, for the area that the council is supposed to cover. So, this is a lineup of some of the challenges.

So, when I came on board, I had to carefully look through each of them and understand the depth to which the problem exists and had to plan because understanding the problem is one thing. You can’t just dabble into it. So, I had to begin planning how we could solve the problems.

For example, how can we solve the problem of the revenue challenges of the council because without revenue the council will not be able to achieve much.

Okay, and I’m sure most of you must have heard or listened or read about my new year roadmap where I enlisted most of the strategies that we will be embarking on okay to expand the revenue scope of the council. The council itself is a council that should live like its sister agencies because the council has that potential.

This is not to compete with any agency or anyone but to be very frank that the future holds better for the council if all that is supposed to be put in place and explored are actually explored and put in place. The council can maximize those potentials which includes regulating the appropriate people that the council is supposed to regulate. How do we do that? We have identified everyone that is supposed to be regulated.

How To Address Issue Of Lack Of Professionalism In The Industry

In the aspect of professionalizing the freight forwarders, you will agree with me that adequate training has not been given to the freight forwarders.

Yes, and this is very important. One of the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) established by the World Bank in measuring the logistic performance index of every organization is the presence of logistic service providers and the presence of logistic service providers is not just anyhow service providers but professionally qualified quality logistic service providers.

So, there is a need for everyone to be professionalized. Besides that we also have to license them as a measure of control. Yes, because at the end of the day if everyone is a freight forwarder without a proper identity, then nobody is a freight forwarder because it’s a business that everybody can then do.

So, in order to control the practice, the identity of people who practice must be ascertained and ensure that the service that is being rendered is of quality, then we have to license them and that is also one thing, a discussion is on the pipeline about.

I thank God for the vision that the president has for the nation in the sense that if you watch across the board, the president has tactically appointed or employed technocrats in key areas. And if you watch policies that are being rolled out from the presidency and at the ministerial level, you will see they are deliberate to transform the economy. And if not that, I’m not sure I would be in this seat today.

I recognize that fact and I appreciate the president and the minister who have been very dogged to ensure that this sector has a breath of life, especially the freight forwarding community that has suffered so much in the past.

So, what we are bringing differently is the technical complexity of practice in the industry, which is lacking.

On Collaboration With Other Sisters Agencies

Yes, we are going to also collaborate with the sister agencies because I believe that if you go out there and ask even the freight forwarders themselves, what is CRFFN, they wouldn’t be able to confidently tell you the full name of CRFFN. How much more sister agencies?

So, there is a need for us to collaborate with all stakeholders in the industry in order for us to really carve a niche in the industry, for us to have a standing and the rightful place of things in the industry. That is another strategy we are embarking on. We can’t do it alone.

So, that is one area that we are looking at. Collaborating massively with other sister agencies in terms of service delivery, in terms of education and training, in terms of research and development, because this industry also has a lot to do with research and development.

Yes, we don’t have much data about the industry. If you go to the Bureau of Statistics, National Bureau of Statistics, I’m sure you might not be able to get a robust data in this industry as you would desire to.

So CRFFN will play that role and complement the role that every other sister agency is playing in the industry, especially the Nigeria Customs Service.

CRFFN complements the role of customs in ensuring compliance to trade procedures, practices and policies. We are complementing the effort of customs. Okay, so having said that, that forms the basis for which we can be able to reposition CRFFN.

How Sister Agencies Can Assist The Council

How other agencies can be of help is through collaboration, like I mentioned. We need to go to them, we need to tell them what we want from them, they need to tell us what they want from us, and we cross-pollinate ideas and arrive at a consensus.

On The National Single Window

That project is one project that every agency can take advantage of and be able to give their best. And in doing that, you find out that all of us will be able to collaborate unconsciously, without knowing it, because the single window will bring everybody together, and as time goes on, the areas of overlap could be addressed even by the pioneers or the handlers of the National Single Window.

So that is how I believe that all the other agencies can be of help, especially to us.

Projection For The Council In Five Years’ Time

Our projection, like someone asked in five years’ time, is to relocate the council from this particular building, where we are, as a tenant, to our own permanent headquarter within this period of five years.

And not just that, we would have been not only the one-stop logistics service agency in the entire maritime industry, but also, we will be able to drive an impactful grassroots trade facilitation monitoring agenda such that the cost of logistics today would be better in five years’ time by the policies and the practices that we put in place to help the industry grow.

And the revenue, especially our revenue impact, and that of the industry as well, would be very much prominent in the GDP of the nation.

On Duplication Of Functions In The Maritime Industry

Of course, it’s not only in Nigeria that this happens. It’s even happened overseas. But the only thing is to have understanding of the limit, the scope, the extent to which each agency can act and then withdraw.

That is the essence of collaboration, that is what collaboration means. For example, if I am to regulate a set standard of operation for the freight forwarders and Shippers’ Council as we can see is also indirectly empowered to set standard of operation for users of the port, automatically freight forwarders are included. So, you can see there is an unintentional overlap of function.

So, this is where CRFFN and the Shippers’ Council can now sit together. Who does the freight forwarder lie directly under them, under their own purview? So, we now look at the nearest neighbor’s door and apply that principle. So, if it is under CRFFN, then CRFFN takes the lead.

If it is under the Shippers’ Council, then the Shippers’ Council takes the lead. But most importantly is to deliver on the standard of our operation. If it means that the two agencies will now have to come together with an understanding and be able to still solve that problem, then the two agencies will come together and solve that problem.

So, it is nothing to be confused about. Okay. With this understanding, I don’t think any agency will have issues with the other because the job to be done is quite enormous and most times it might require more than one agency to fulfill or accomplish those jobs.

So, I think that is where collaboration is very much important and with understanding and we’ll get the job done.

The act establishing CRFFN at 16 of 2007 has mandated CRFFN to regulate logistic services in principle. But unfortunately, the language that might have been used even to a reasonable extent has always been straightforward. By extension, you find out that the act itself speaks to something wider than what it intends to speak about.

On The Issue Of Foreigners Taking Over The Job Of Freight Forwarders In Nigeria

On the issue of foreigners taking jobs of freight forwarders, yes, we are not unaware of this and that is why we need to now begin to profile everyone that comes to the port. As it is now, there is need, like I’m glad that NPA is coming up with the port community system and I believe in that port community system, every service provider will have to be identified and I believe there should be a process of identifying the service providers, those who enter to use the port facilities or terminals.

I’m sure overseas or where the foreigners are coming from, they have their own local control about logistic services.

We should have similar things here, where our freight forwarders will enjoy their business without being taken away by foreigners.

And, if you are a foreigner and you really want to engage in logistic services, there is no problem, but there is a category, there is a benchmark. We see you as an investor, yes, and you have to bring a type of technology that has not been in existence. We also have to consider you in terms of how much equity you are introducing to the system, for us to be able to now identify the particular area of operation that you can now engage in the service.

Not coming to the port to close alerts or to submit a custom declaration, as it has been seen at the ports at the moment. So, we’re working on that and we’re going to ensure that we checkmate all of these excesses. That’s a mandate of the council.

Quote

“I thank God for the vision that the president has for the nation in the sense that if you watch across the board, the president has tactically appointed or employed technocrats in key areas. And if you watch policies that are being rolled out from the presidency and at the ministerial level, you will see they are deliberate to transform the economy. And if not that, I’m not sure I would be in this seat today”.