Ghanaians have been urged not to only concentrate on attaining academic certification, but, should also strive to put into practice, skills and knowledge acquired. This is because academic credentials could only be valuable if expertise and experience obtained becomes beneficial to the whole country. Professor Dominic Fobih, the Minister for Education, Science and Sports, gave the advice at the first graduation ceremony of the Ghana Institute of Freight Forwarders (GIFF), at the weekend at Tema. He said “a diploma or degree can only mean much if you practice the skills and the knowledge that you have mastered. For once, let us be rewarded by what we do and not what we know only”. Prof Fobih said the attainment of new skills must be applied positively to impact on the lives of the people. He commended the GIFF for providing education and training on the management of freight movement and charged the 70 grandaunts to work hard to give credence to the Institute. Mr Emmanuel Doku, Commissioner of the Custom Excise Preventive Service (CEPS), praised the GIFF for initiating good training programmes that have augmented CEPS’ proficiency training programmes. He called on freight forwarders to set good standards that could be used as a yardstick to evaluate their importance to the economy. Mr Doku advised them to abide by their professional ethics and to update their skills and knowledge. He said that “in a knowledge-based economy where skills are updated every minute, none of us can afford to remain static”. Mr Robert Kutin, GIFF national president, said freight forwarders facilitated the movement of goods to consumers and created wealth for the management of the economy. He noted contributions made by freight forwarders to the development of the economy and indicated that a chunk of revenue collected by CEPS was facilitated by the freight forwarding industry. He observed that GIFF was organising the only freight forwarding training programme in the West African sub-region. Mr David Nutakor, chairman of the GIFF Education Board, said FIATA, overseeing standards of professional training in the freight forwarding industry, was supporting the Institute to provide train-the-trainer courses. Source: GNA