FG Ties Cargo Clearance To Payment Of CRFFN POF

THE Federal Government, yesterday, said that henceforth, the payment of Practitioners Operation Fee, POF, will now be required to take delivery of cargoes from the ports.

Disclosing this stakeholder’s meeting in Lagos, Registrar of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria, CRFFN, Mr. Sam Nwakohu said that the Federal Ministry of Finance has approved that only ‘POF’ paying freight forwarders are allowed to clear their cargoes from the ports adding that plans were also underway to digitalize the payment of POF before the end of the year.

Nwakohu also said that the POF regime is a win-win for everybody noting that integrating the POF will build capacity for effective participation in new African Continental Free Trade Agreement, AFCTA, regime.

He disclosed that Nigerian freight forwarders must compete globally noting that they were behind time and needed to catch up with the rest of the world.

The Registrar also urged freight forwarders to conform with the rules and regulation guiding the practice of the profession.

He said: “In the months to come, we shall be spending a great deal of our time on how to complete on the global platform. It, therefore, becomes imperative that we must raise a financial capital to the fund and face the battle and the practitioner’s operating fee, POF, is our first point of take-off.

“The POF regime is a win-win for the government and the practitioners with the promise of organised collective action against numerous threats including foreign intrusion and dominance, near absence of local content participation in oil and gas services including the need to build real capacity for effective participation in new African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) regime”, Nwakohu concluded.