TOWARDS eliminating quackery across South-South and South-East, Council for Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria, CRFFN, and the Institute of Export Operations and Management, IEOM, have reached agreement to float professional training for practitioners.

The training, first happening in both zones, will target freight forwarders, customs brokers, warehouse operators, air cargo consolidators, courier operators, and consolidated freight station operators.

A Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, between both parties was signed at IEOM’s Port Harcourt base for CRFFN by the Registrar and CEO, Dr Kingsley Igwe and IEOM Executive Secretary and CEO, Dr Ofon Udofia.

Dr Igwe said the collaboration aims to close knowledge gaps that fuel poor service delivery and malpractices at the ports with many practitioners lacking understanding of industry terms and regulations.

Igwe said, “So the gathering today, to form this synergy, collaboration, means there is need for us to leverage on each other’s strength, because nobody has it all, and nobody knows it all.

“Training is very important because a lot of people are in the freight forwarding industry that do not understand the language of the industry, not even the regulation guiding their actions.

“Lack of training is also why most Nigerian products are being rejected during export, because practitioners are not exposed to the rules and the processes. That is what brought this particular institution to limelight, to close the gaps.”

Stressing adherence to global standard, he said, “Overseas, you cannot practice in the industry without being professionalized, without being licensed, and without being trained.

“A lot of times you hear about complaints in the port, we jump into conclusion that freight forwarders or customs agents are dubious. No, they are not. I am a living witness because I practice and have seen where the problems are.”

For IEOM, Dr Udofia hailed the partnership’s birthing of “a professional body that will certify trained persons, not only to certify people, but make them have confidence in themselves.

“This will make them proud of what they do, so that we will be able to attain what the president is talking about. We cannot get a $3 trillion economy without trade.”

Udofia added, “Time has come to transform the intelligence from negatives deployments as ‘yahoo’ to positives such as professional freight forwarding, export buyers, forwarding of cargo, etc.

All they need is direction. So in conjunction with the Council, we are giving the young in this country, students, businessmen alike, a direction to let you do things right and still make money, and then it’s more prestigious to do it that way.”

On keybchallenges with the venture, Dr Udofia, “People don’t want to pay for training. They don’t want to pay for services. We are not funded by government. So people are expected to pay for the training they come for.”

Addressing cost, IEOM said it created the IOM Export Academy, aside running a Student and Youth Export Development Program aimed at catching young people early.

“They are taught to export, not import, so we want to imbibe that in this collaboration to make sure students are taught how to export.

“Our students are also made to understand that you don’t just carry your portfolio and go to the port and become a forwarding agent, that you need to be educated.”