The Council for the Regulations of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria ( CRFFN) has flagged off the collection of practitioner operating fee (POF) in Lagos, with practical demonstration of the step payment procedure on the council’s portal before newsmen.
Speaking during the flagging off ceremony at the CRFFN headquarters in Lagos, the Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of the council, Barr Samuel Nwakohu, said that the council had worked hard to realise the objective, adding that the launch would be restricted to the seaports for now.
“It is a phase thing. We will get to the airports or to the other borders eventually. And the soft launch is going to take like two to three weeks which simply means that it is a period that we will use to observe the technology. We have observed it but you know there is a difference between when you are on the field and when you do it in your office.
“It is going to be two to three weeks, we will look at it and whatever challenges we get,we have a response team, a 16-member response team on ground that will attend to people. Their telephone numbers, their emails are all in the portal”, he said.
Nwakohu disclosed that for every 40 foot containers cleared at the ports, the freight forwarder was to pay N2,000 while the sum of N1,000 was to be paid for every 20 foot container.
Taking the audience through the payment process on the portal, the CRFFN boss listed the steps to be taken by freight forwarders to ensure seamless payment.
Explaining how the portal works, the Registrar stated that, “what we did is for each account; we open an E-wallet if you have your BVN number attached to the account, automatically the system will open a wallet for you where you can keep funds aside for the transactions you will be running. So, if you input this, you will see N6,000, it will deduct N6,000 from your wallet. Once they resolve it, it will return back your balance to your wallet within 48 hours.
“Even with password having been put in, it will still not process, it has to generate one time password OTTP from your bank just like when you are buying an air ticket online. So, when that is generated, now, he will input it and you will be debited.”
By: Nkpemenyie Mcdominic, Lagos
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