Determined to enthrone sanity in the port industry, the Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC) said it is perfecting plans to develop a modern traffic management system in the next 18 months to help in arresting the incessant traffic gridlocks in the Apapa port city.
Hassan Bello, executive secretary of the NSC, who said this in Lagos on Monday when a delegation from the Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), led by Remi Ogungbemi, its chairman paid a courtesy visit to the Council, disclosed that the traffic management system would consist of standard holding-bay and truck parks that would make use of electronic call-up system for all trucks coming to Apapa and Tin-Can Island Ports.
Bello said that the essence was to ensure that the number of trucks and trailers coming to Apapa on daily basis, have business to do at the ports. He noted that study revealed that about 5,000 trucks come to Apapa every day but only about 1,500 of that number has business to do at the port while the remaining 3,500 hang around to cause commotion in the port city.
“The traffic management system is currently at the process of procurement with the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC). This is the beginning of reform that was initiated by the Council. We need to re-humanise the drivers of the economy because trucking and haulage services controls 70 percent of the nation’s economy,” Bello stated.
According to him, the Council wants to reform the trucking business because it is an international business and there is need to uphold safety of the cargo because maritime chain stretches to the delivery of the goods to the importers’ warehouse.
Bello, who noted that the biggest challenge facing the haulage business is lack of infrastructure especially bad road, lack of adequate security and degradation of driver, said that the Council is also perfecting plans to build private sector driven truck transit park (TTT) across different geo-political zones in the country.
Earlier, Ogungbemi solicited for the support of the Council to enable it secure a transit park worth billions of naira in Orile Igamu area of Lagos State. He said that the facility is located 2-3 kilometers away from the two major seaports in Apapa and has the capacity to accommodate 1,500 trucks.
“The facility is an already made, which was formally used as bonded terminal but we do not have the resources to secure the facility. We have taken the owner of the facility to the Lagos State Government and the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) to help us secure the facility even if is to give us as loan that would be recouped through charges on trucks that make use of the facility,” he pleaded.
Ogungbemi, who noted that 50 percent of the traffic problem in Apapa would be solved if the truck terminal or holding-bays are secured for truckers, said that truckers pass through difficulties to do business in and out of the port.
AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
