Maritime operators have stressed the need for the Federal Government to establish satellite truck parks to address the issue of time loss associated with truck congestion along the roads leading to the ports.
The PRIMANEWS over time, observed that a large number of petroleum tankers and trucks parked indiscriminately from Mile 2 to the Coconut end of the Tincan Island Port, on the expressway down to Apapa.
Speaking on the development, the General Secretary of the Association of Bonded Terminal Operators of Nigeria, Haruna Omolajomo, said importers and their agents are losing a lot due to this.
“It causes a great loss to the importers, agents, and even transporters. The economy losses between N100m and N450m daily due to this menace. The importers would be made to pay for unnecessary demurrage for both terminal and shipping companies. Importers lose their container deposits worth millions of naira due to inability to return containers in time to the shipping companies.”
Reeling out statistics, Omolajomo claimed that an estimated 1.4 million vehicles use that particular road adding that tankers and trucks are close to 45 per cent of the number.
Lamenting, he said, “It can take days for cargoes to either enter the ports or get to the owners. Usually, a trip of just 3 hours can take 2 or more days because of this obstruction. Many people have lost their lives because of this obstruction as movement is being hindered during emergencies. Many road users are even found dead in their cars when they cannot withstand the stress, especially during the rainy season.”
According to Omolajomo, “It also makes the tariff for hiring trucks to be on the higher side. Can you imagine a truck that ought to be hired for N250, 000 ordinarily for a journey from one point to another can now be N550, 000 due to fuel consumption? All these unnecessary demurrage and expenses will be added to the clearing cost and passed to the end users who are the consumers. This is one of what is responsible for the high cost of living in the country.”
Also speaking, the administration secretary of the Association of Maritime Truck Owners of Nigeria, Mohammed Sani, said that the activities of tanker drivers are causing serious obstruction to the free movement of port-bound containerised trucks.
“So there is a need for the government to provide a satellite park or truck transit park for all these tankers where the movement will be managed into their respective depots. They can’t just come and park on the roads; they should have their call-up system that will check their movement batch by batch.