Ex-Governing Council Member Knocks CRFFN over Exorbitant Training Fees

…Says Abubakar Tsanni Not a Popular Chairman of CRFFN

By DAPO OLAWUNI

A former Governing Council member of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) Chief C.A.T Agubama has condemned the exorbitant prices fixed for training programs and diploma courses organized by the Council.

In an exclusive chat with DAILY TREND last week, Chief Agubama also reasoned that the current Chairman of CRFFN, Alhaji Tsanni Abubakar is not a popular Chairman of the Council and this was why there is so much interference from the Ministry of Transportation.

When he was prodded by our correspondent to speak on the current docility of the CRFFN, Chief Agubama said;

“I am not a politician, so I hate condemning CRFFN, we were the pioneers, we should allow whoever are in the Council to do their two years and come back if they are so elected.

“I have played my part and I have left, let them do whatever they want to do in the Council, all we are after is the smooth running, understanding and forging ahead of the Council.

“However, one thing I do not subscribe to is the training cost which is very high. When they arrange for one training or the other, they are asking people to pay N100,000, N200,000 and so on.

“Education is a continuous thing, you cannot force it on people, the person who is a freight forwarder gets the basic training of a freight forwarder, a committed freight forwarder can carry-on like that and train himself through reading and so on.

“But creating different kinds of diploma and allowing the trainers to fix extra ordinarily high prices is what I don’t support. It is not easy at all, if you fix prices at N30,000 per seminars or training, there would be more people, it would attract more people to the training, but when you start talking in hundreds of thousands, you would get less persons and little profits for that program”

Continuing, Chief Agubama who is also the former President of National Association of Air Freight Forwarders and Consolidators (NAFFAC) noted that the interference of the Ministry of Transportation is because of the weakness of the present Council members.

According to him, they are not being strong enough to check interference of the Ministry which is only supposed to give direction.

“Tsanni Abubakar cannot say he is a popular Chairman of the Council, he is looked at as somebody imposed by the former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, that is how many people viewed him.

“Nwabunike and Olanrewaju did well during their time, although there were lots of propaganda against us, many lies were told, ICPC invited me to Abuja, they were hearing that we were sharing millions of money. Such propaganda damaged the image of the Council members and this was not good” he concluded