New Telegraph

Gridlock: NPA faces fresh hurdles

Barely one month after the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA)’s electronic call-up system commenced to ease trade facilitation, the gridlock, extortion and other malpractices, which the app was designed to check, returned. BAYO AKOMOLAFE report

When it was launched, the Authority designated 17 parks for the port-bound trucks where truckers were expected to wait until they are called to enter the port through the electronic call-up app.

Issue

However, it was learnt that the online booking system and the truck park arrangement have failed to function, leading to the return of trucks and extortion and other sharp practices on the roads. Findings revealed that the implementation of the electronic call-up system had been fraught with several irregularities within one month as shipping lines and truck owners refused to abide by the rules amid weak enforcement by NPA and other security agencies. For instance, truckers under the aegis of Tincan Island Port Transporter Operators (TIPTO), who were not pleased with the new level of extortion on the road, threatened to withdraw their services from the nation’s seaport if the concerned authorities failed to halt the sharp practices at the various holding bays. According to the group’s Coordinator, Sylvester Keshiro, the presence of security agencies along the Mile 2-Sunrise corridor had posed serious menace to the operators and trade facilitation.

Impunity

It was also gathered that despite the threat by Lagos State government, the cabals operating on the road and port would not allow the system to function as planned. Trouble started when NPA said in 2018 that it would sanction erring shipping companies or terminal operators, who failed to provide holding bays for their trucks and containers through the newly- adopted call-up system. Among the conditions it laid down for the shipping lines was that they must increase the capacity of their holding bays, ranging from 1,800 Twenty Equivalent Unit (TEUs) to 7,500 TEUS It added that all erring shipping companies and terminal operators, who failed to comply with the agreement on the use of holding bays, would be punished. After several warnings, four liners were suspended following their failure to comply with the directive to acquire and operate holding bays. Notwithstanding the sanction, the level of compliance among the shipping lines remained low. According to the Chairman, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Kirikiri Lighter Terminal chapter, Emmanuel Umeadi, liners such as Maersk Line, Pacific International Line (PIL) and Cosco Shipping Line were culpable as they refused to provide holding bays. The chairman lamented that failure by the shipping companies and jetty operators to abide by government’s directives to provide holding bays for their trucks had rendered the various solutions on the port roads useless as the companies were found of importing larger number of containers than empty containers exported, thereby making the country a dumping ground for empty boxes.

Congestion

These conducts, it was gathered, contributed to the persistent congestion around the Lagos Port Complex (LPC) and the Tin Can Island Port (TCIP), spreading to other parts of Lagos metropolis where truck drivers with no business at the ports park on the express roads despite Lagos State threat.

Warning

Early in the month, Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, vowed to fight, name and shame saboteurs, be it a corporate organisation, company, police officer,Lagos State official, who were trying to frustrate government’s effort to tackle Apapa gridlock. He noted: “We will not stop at anything to ensure that anybody who tries to retract and take us back to where we are coming from on the gridlock in Apapa, we will do everything that we have to fight those people. “We will bring them to the public court for them to see that we are about seriousness. We cannot condone the recklessness and carelessness that our citizens have gone through. Obviously, what we are doing now is that we have taken the unscrupulous people who have been benefiting from the gridlock out, we have taken whatever it is they are earning from them and we know they will want to fight back.”

Development

Regardless of the warning, a lengthy line of trucks have taken over the port access roads at Wharf and Mile 2- Apapa roads, thereby, impeding free movement of vehicles into the Lagos Port Complex and Tin Can Island Port Complex. For instance, it was alleged that truckers were made to pay to reproduce another call up paper if the previous one issued was not used after 48 hours. Besides, finding revealed that the call up, which was N10,000 as announced by NPA, now cost between 16,000 and 30,000 to obtain at the various holding bays. A truckers, Kunle Abdul, said: “Some holding bays collect N20,000, N25,000, while other collect N30,000 per call up paper, depending on the person that issued.”

Last line

There is need by the Federal Government to ensure strict compliance and impose stiff penalty on shipping companies, truckers and port operators who are truncating various policies introduced to ease trade facilitation at port.

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