The Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN) is worried that the recent guidelines on truck movement by the Presidential Task Team on Apapa gridlock will worsen the chaos at Lagos ports axis, including creating congestion in the overstretched port complex. MUYIWA LUCAS reports.
Although they were aimed at restoring sanity to the ports, the guidelines by the Presidential Task Team on Apapa gridlock have been faulted by critical stakeholders at the port, which described them as “ recipe for chaos, which will further compound traffic congestion on the port access roads and exacerbate port congestion”.
One of such stakeholders is the Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN).
As part of the guidelines, the Task Team restricted the movement of trucks to the port. It also restricted port-bound trucks to the Lagos Port Complex Apapa only via the Wharf Road.
According to STOAN, this decision is “ill advised” considering that no such restriction has been placed on trucks being used for other purposes, giving them unrestricted use of other roads. The body insisted that the Task Team’s Vice Chairman, Kayode Opeifa, ought to have consulted with operators in the industry, especially truck operators, terminal operators and shipping firms before coming up with such guidelines. Besides, they maintained that considerations should have been given to the effects of the guidelines on the prevailing cargo backlog at the seaports.
Indeed, more worrisome for some is the impact such restrictions would have on the port complex. Stakeholders have called for the utilisation of the lockdown arising from the novel coronavirus pandemic, to gain speed in the task of bringing sanity to the ports, especially in decongesting the facility and its access roads.
This is why they fear that should the guidelines by the Task Team subsist, the damage to the economy may be greater than anticipated.
“The Federal Government deliberately left the ports open so as to keep the flow of essential supplies to Nigerians at this difficult times going, but the task team has come up with guidelines that suppress the timely evacuation of cargo at the port. It is clear that this task team has outlived its relevance, and its operations are not in tandem with the realities on ground in Apapa. Is the task team aware that Apapa is a port city? Why then is the team creating guidelines that restrict the movement of trucks evacuating cargoes at the port? Is this not contrary to the position of the Federal Government that the logistics and supply chain should not be interrupted?” STOAN said in a statement obtained by The Nation.
The association said it rejects “in totality” the guidelines rolled out by the task team, which restricts the movement of trucks evacuating cargo from the port only to a certain time of the day. It based its rejection on the modus operandi of the port system as it operates round the clock, thereby requiring that “cargo evacuation must be done round the clock”, including at night to avoid congestion.
Insisting that the guidelines stands logic on its head, the body maintained that the roads are for port operations and as such it is illogical to insist that port trucks be prevented from working at certain times and not to use certain roads.
To prevent further adverse effects on the economy, especially at the ports, the body, which maintained that the Task Team had deviated from its brief, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to call the team to order.
STOAN urged the Federal Government to mandate the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) to take over traffic management on the port access roads, “so as to clear the chaos created by the task team”.
“NPA has a robust security department that had done a good job of managing the traffic on the port access roads in the past and it is the consensus of stakeholders that they should return to that role,” STOAN said.
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