By Steve Agbota
The Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) has said that it would be graduating over 400 people in freight forwarding, supply chain management across 16 accredited tertiary institutions in the country.
The maiden graduation ceremony, which will take place at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) on Saturday, will have the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, sending forth the graduates from tertiary institutions into the business of freight forwarding and supply chain management.
The Registrar of CRFFN, Samuel Nwakohu, said the course was initiated by the Federal Government to ensure the council weeds out quark and non-professionals within the ports corridors practising the business of freight forwarding and supply chain management in which Nigeria is still lagging behind globally.
He said the course is in line with the section 4 of the CRFFN, which provides for the training, retraining, educating and professionalising the freight forwarders with the right tools and knowledge to meet international best practices as regards trade facilitation.
According to him, the Federal Government had a mandate that the freight forwarding business should be regulated because of its importance to the nation’s and global economy.
He said the graduands would be awarded National Diploma and Higher National Diploma in freight forwarding and supply chain management, who finished their courses since 2012 till date.
However, he restated that December 2021 remains the deadline for anyone practising the business of freight forwarding and supply chain management to meet the minimum academic qualifications to practise the trade.
He added that any one who does not have academic qualification after the deadline would be stopped from practising the trade, while the council would have their names removed from its register of freight forwarders in the country.
“When we have the requisite education in freight forwarding and supply chain management, we will help build capacity in line with international standards,” he said. The Director for Education and Training, Alban Igwe, said the course was set up in the country following the government’s directives to be at par with the developed countries in digitalisation of trade facilitation.