The Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy is set to approve a digital standardisation and price determination framework for freight forwarding services charges as part of efforts to achieve predictability, transparency and global best practice.
Registrar of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN), Kingsley Igwe, disclosed this at a town hall meeting in Lagos, stating that the services cover haulage and customs clearance, to restructure how logistics costs are structured and communicated across Nigeria's maritime sector.
Igwe said the proposal was already submitted and currently being reviewed at the Ministry, noting that the freight forwarding sector has long been plagued by opaque, lump-sum pricing that leaves both shippers and agents exposed to financial risk.
The CRFFN Registrar grounded the proposed initiative in a World Trade Organisation (WTO) framework, which had established a three-part solution for addressing the unpredictability of logistics costs globally. Igwe explained that many countries have built on this by developing standard operating procedures that harmonise pricing mechanisms and processes across the logistics chain, including ports, customs, haulage and freight forwarding.
He, however, observed that such uniformity is largely absent in Nigeria, which prompted recent efforts to introduce similar standardisation measures. “Today, if you want to clear your consignment, you don't know how much the agent's service charge is because everything is lump sum. We did a study to establish standards that will guide the industry. For haulage, we made comparisons with several other countries. They charge per kilometre, including all the necessary cost components such as wear and tear, value, insurance, risk and everything on the truck,” Igwe explained.
Beyond transparency for shippers, Igwe also stressed the financial hardship quietly endured by freight forwarding agents under the current unregulated pricing environment, pushing back against the popular perception that agents profit enormously from cargo clearance.
The CRFFN boss dismissed the perception that clearing agents make excessive profits, explaining that many are financially strained due to the unpredictability of clearance costs. According to him, agents often inject personal funds to complete transactions when initial estimates fall short, sometimes deliberately underquoting just to remain competitive.
Igwe noted that once additional charges such as customs debit notes arise, the original funds are quickly exhausted, leaving agents to borrow money to settle obligations and secure cargo release. He added that in many cases, importers refuse to reimburse these extra costs, pushing agents into debt and financial distress despite widespread assumptions that they earn significantly from each transaction.
The CRFFN boss said the proposed digital mechanism was specifically designed to address these systemic vulnerabilities by factoring in unforeseen risks without eroding the agent's fixed service charge.
The CRFFN said once the proposal is approved, intensive stakeholder engagement for the implementation process to be defined would commence.
