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In a bid to reduce losses and pilferage during movement of goods out of ports, the Federal Government is seeking N43.2 billion from the private sector for the construction of nine truck transit parks (TTPs) across the country.
Through the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, the Nigerian government has concluded plans to build TTPs in Lokoja, Kogi State; Jebba, Kwara State; Onitsha, Anambra State, and Obolo-Afor, Enugu State.
Other designated sites for trucks are Ore, Ondo State; Mararaban, Plateau State; Ogere, Ogun; Porto Novo Creek, Lagos; and Illela, Sokoto State, Hassan Bello, chief executive officer of the NSC, said in Lagos on Thursday.
TTPs are public rest areas located off highways, designed to provide temporary rest location for truck drivers. They are targeted at enabling truck drivers have proper rest to reduce the spate of accidents on highways while cutting down on traffic gridlocks.
“More than 90 percent of freight transport in Nigeria is by trucks. There are truck nuisance on our highways and high rate of accidents involving trucks. Statistics show that the main cause of accidents is fatigue,” Bello said at the breakfast meeting of the Nigerian American Chamber of Commerce (NACC) held in Lagos.
“This is already telling on investors and the economy, and we cannot afford to continue with this chaos.”
Bello explained that the truck parks will be operated by only five or six trucking companies with a minimum share capital.
He said investors are already looking at the return on investment, while Enugu State government has already donated land for the project.
According to Bello, the project could be a public-private partnership, enabling shippers and truckers to safely deliver their cargoes in faraway locations from the ports.
“I believe that TTPs will help in employment generation and reducing pressure of trucks sitting on the roads. It is also a source of government revenue,” Oluwasegun Alabi, CEO of Factotum, a customs broker and shipping agency, told BusinessDay.
Nigeria loses N1 trillion each year to avoidable delays caused by paper work done by 14 government departments at the ports, some of which are performing overlapping functions, according to a recent report by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI). Nigeria has six major ports, which include Apapa Port, Tin-Can Island Port, Calabar Port, Onne Port, Rivers Port, and Warri Port but Apapa and Tin Can make up 80 percent of the entire traffic of goods from the ports.
In Nigeria’s seaport, cargo dwells for 19-25 days; in Cotonou, 12-14 days; in Durban port, South Africa, four days, while in Mombassa port, Kenya, cargo stays a maximum of 5.7 days, a study by NSC says.
The Federal Government has initiated a number of policies to reform the country’s ports and transport system but delays are still not over.
Truck accidents have continued to occur on Nigerian roads due to poor infrastructure, fatigue and carelessness on the part of largely youthful drivers on the roads.
More than 1,000 Nigerians lost their lives between December 2016 and January 2017 to auto crashes caused by tanker and trucks drivers, according to Boboye Oyeyemi, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) corps marshal.
“The level of losses we incur from the ports to factories is so high. If you are an exporter, your goods can stay for over 21 days and your raw materials can even stay longer depending on the location of your factory,” a manufacturer in a multinational firm said.
ODINAKA ANUDU
