Operational Hurdles Influencing Freight Forwarding Practices as a Profession in the Nigerian Maritime Industry

Abstract

Freight forwarding plays a significant role in processing of documents and forwarding of consignment at any seaport or customs station. Unfortunately, this profession has not been executed with high level of professionalism with series of unprofessional ethics. Therefore this study examined the major factors influencing the profession of freight forwarding practices and the effect of cargo diversion on profit margin for the services of freight forwarders.This paper used primary data from field survey using questionnaire as instrument. Inferential statistics was used to analyse the collected data. The result showed that fraudulent practices, government policy, changes in tariff are all the factors that affect the freight forwarding business thus leading to diversion of cargo to other neigbhouring countries which in turn affect the profit margin and shipper‟s financial constraints also mar the business of freight forwarding making it unproductive and not lucrative for people to patronize.The study therefore, concluded that freight forwarding system should incorporate management information systems in their daily transactions to enhance transparency and efficiency with the support of Port Authorities and Terminal operators. It was recommended that government should set up a very reasonable monitoring unit to ensure that freight forwarders observe certain minimum standards, which is to sanitize the practices of forwarding activities. Also, policy inconsistency should be addressed by the government.