EXCLUSIVE: CRFFN Begins Payment of POF Entitlements to Freight Forwarders, Associations

By DAPO OLAWUNI

Fresh indications have emerged that the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) has began a process of paying back 35% of accruals from the collection of the Practitioners Operations Fees (POF) to freight forwarding companies and various freight forwarders associations.

The POF fee is an internally generated revenue (IGR) approved by the Federal Government to be paid by freight forwarders.

Under the POF regime, freight forwarders pay N3.5 per tone of cargo imported into the country, N1.5 per kilo for air cargo, N1, 000 on each imported 20-feet container and N2, 000 per 40-feet container.

According to the proposed sharing formula of the POF collection, 25 per cent of the revenue will go into the Federation account towards nation-building, while 35 per cent is given to freight forwarders and associations.

A further breakdown of the 35 percent to freight forwarders and associations is that; 10% officially have been given to associations, 5% was approved to the declarants that pay the POF.

The remaining 20% is to be used for training purposes for freight forwarders.

Meanwhile, the remaining 40 per cent will be shared between S. W. Global, technical partners to the CRFFN.
S. W. Global gets 20 per cent while CRFFN gets the remaining 20 per cent.

DAILY TREND gathered exclusively that the CRFFN has now directed all declarants (freight forwarders and their companies) to send their payment details to the Council or through various chapter office of the associations.

CRFFN has asked the Declarant on all the POF Payment to forward its Declarant Number, Bank Account Details, Contact Address to them for the processing of its entitlement, or send to association chapter offices to forward to them.

All efforts by our correspondent to speak to the Acting Registrar of CRFFN, Mrs Chinyere Uromta proved abortive as phone calls to her numbers were not picked up.

However, at the association level, the Sole Administrator of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) Alhaji Babatunde Mukaila confirmed the development.

“I am aware of this, I just did the clarification from the man in charge of their enforcement and Protocol. The agreement ab-initio, which has not seen daylight has been that every payment made at any moment in time would be calculated, 5% of the total money goes back to the Associations, while 10% goes to the main declarant

“I believe that this is what they are trying to enforce now”

The ANLCA boss said that since the collection of the POF commenced at the nation’s ports, no remittance has been paid to the declarants in agreement with the CRFFN Act.

“My company have not benefitted anything as a declarant but we have been paying. What the CRFFN is trying to do now is to come back to that simple agreement that, any money you pay, you will have access to the 10%

“However, the position of CRFFN is that, on the payment portal, there is a place for you to put your account number, and they want people to do that” Mukaila told our correspondent

In April 2023, the CRFFN Acting Registrar, Chinyere Uromta had expressed dissatisfaction at the poor level of compliance with payment of the POF.

Chinyere Uromta, lamented that the revenue so far collected is a far cry from the Federal Government’s expectation.