• Friday, March 29, 2024
businessday logo

BusinessDay

Apapa gridlock: How corruption, vested interest ambush solutions, hurt businesses (1)

Apapa: No hiding place for motorists as trucks overrun port city

If traffic gridlock in Apapa has remained intractable over the years, it is because corruption and vested interest in the premier port city have ambushed solutions while systemic failure has persisted for far too long.

Based on several interviews with port officials, importers and agents, it was discovered that, truly, in Nigeria, corruption has assumed the status of an emperor, occupying prime positions in governments, businesses and, as in the case of Apapa, on roads and bridges.

Apapa, Nigeria’s premier port city, is home to the country’s two busiest seaports – Apapa and Tin Can. These, according to records, account for about 75 percent of export and import activities in the country. The port city is said to be a N20 billion-a-day economy.

But the port city has become a byword for chaos and rampant corruption. An inability to match exports with the volume of containers imported into the country means that the beleaguered ports will continue to suffer congestion, and roads leading to the port city will also continue to be a nightmare.

Hundreds of trucks, some bearing containers, queue up for months to get access into the ports and companies hard pressed for time pay a premium to get ahead, creating a ‘racket’ for security agencies tasked with orderly movement into the ports.

A survey by Nigerian Shippers’ Council estimates that 7,000 trucks ply Apapa Wharf Road on a daily basis and only about 2,500 of them have genuine business at the ports. The rest, whose movements are largely uncontrolled or aided by rent-seekers, constitute not just the cause of the gridlock, but also the source of corruption.

Corruption

There is a well-organised racket going on in Apapa and Tin Can Island ports, Lagos, which has perpetuated the gridlock going on in the premier port city. The malfeasance involves trucks drivers, security agencies and government officials operating in the port city.

Known as ‘Fastrack,’ this racket ensures that truck drivers who part with N250,000 to N350,000 get speedy call-up, entering the ports before others on queue. Because money is involved, the trucks of drivers who are able to pay come into the ports at the same time, resulting in total lockdown of the premier port city, BusinessDay has found. But this is just one out of many reasons why the gridlock has defied solutions from Lagos State and Federal Government.

“If you want the Fast-track system, you will spend between N250,000 and N350,000 to get your way through for 20-foot and 40-foot containers, respectively,” a clearing and forwarding agent, who spoke in an interview with BusinessDay, said.

“If you pay that money by 2pm, your container will be at the ports by 8pm and by 9pm-10pm, you shall have loaded your container. That is the fast-track. But if you choose to queue, it takes a minimum of four to six weeks to enter the ports.”

In many cases, truck drivers hide N500 or N1000 note in a piece of folded paper for security officers in Apapa.

The agent recalled that about six years ago, a 40-foot container could move from Tin Can Island Port to Point Road also in Apapa for between N70,000 and N80,000. But today, that is not the case, saying that to lift a 40-foot container from Tin Can Port to the same destination would take N220,000 to N240,000. “Even at this, the situation has improved because in December 2019, it cost about N750,000.”

Remi Ogungbemi, chairman, Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), confirmed to BusinessDay that these developments were true, noting that Apapa bridges had become market places while check points on the roads had become tollgates.

“The system presently being used to administer trucks into terminals, factories and jetties in Apapa has become obsolete and there is need for a change. There is need to create another system that is devoid of human interference and cannot be compromised to benefit people’s personal interest,” he said.

He said it was sad that many people were benefiting from the chaotic system, which had become bread and butter for them.

“Some people have grouped themselves into a cabal and if you are not a member of that cabal, your trucks would not be allowed to go. Every morning and night, monies exchange hands but the money cannot be seen physically because they are very smart in doing it, and if you are not a member of that caucus, your trucks cannot go,” he said in a phone interview.

The Federal Government few years ago set up the Presidential Task Team (PTT) led by Kayode Opeifa. Many players at the port city say the task force has not been as effective as they ought to.

One major player at the ports told BusinessDay that that the Apapa problem could be solved if vested interests including government agencies wanted to get it solved, dismissing the taskforce by whatever name called. According to him, any new taskforce for traffic control meant increase in the cost and level of bribery on the road.

“If police, FRSC and LASTMA are now collecting N200,000 from you for 20-foot container, they will now tell you to make it N300,000 and if it is 40-foot, they will ask you to make it N400,000 because of the new taskforce team,” he said, stressing that “as long as these corrupt security agencies and others profit from this system, there is no incentive to fix the mess in Apapa.”

One importer, who pleaded not to be quoted, said he paid between N250,000 and N300,000 to shunt the long queues to pick up his container containing machines for a critical manufacturing concern.

Economic losses

This comes with a lot of costs on the economy. A report by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) notes Nigeria loses N600 billion in Customs revenue annually, including $10 billion in non-oil export sector and N2.5 trillion in corporate earnings across various sectors due to the poor state of Nigerian ports.

In an interview conducted by the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) on critical challenges facing the sector in Q1 2020, 94 percent of the CEOs said that congestion at the ports had a significantly negative effect on their productivity and cost of production.

“Most worrisome are the issues of deliberate delay in cargo clearing time, raising of technical barriers, rejection of relevant documents by officers of the agency that approved import documents, multiple agencies with duplicated functions and other rent-seeking activities of vested interests at the port that excessively fleece operators,” they said.

Tola Faseru, former president of Cashew Association of Nigeria, said it costs N25,000 to transport a metric ton of cashew from anywhere in Lagos to the ports because of the difficulty in accessing the terminals.

“The situation is bad,” he said. “Although government has improved the roads leading to the ports, accessing the ports is still difficult. It takes two weeks to get your container cleared even with barges. We need better structure and easy access to the ports to make ease of doing business a reality,” he further said.

Jon Tudy Kachikwu, CEO of Jon Tudy Interbix, exporter of packaged foods to the United States via Apapa, loses most of his products on Apapa bridge. He spends N650,000 to move his foods from Iddo in Lagos to the port city as against N350,000 in November 2019. This represents 86 percent increase in the cost of moving from Iddo to Apapa, both in Lagos.

His products spend three weeks on Apapa bridge before getting to the ports, but they often get bad before reaching the destination country.

“Security agencies are the biggest problems we have in Nigeria. Our logistics costs have doubled in the last one year because security agencies are asking for money at each junction. We cannot talk about development and food security, but continue to pay lip service to corruption by security agents, which is killing businesses. How will Nigeria have the scarce foreign exchange when Apapa and Tin Can are frustrating exporters,” he asked.

Another businessman said while he spent about N500,000 to bring a container from China to the Apapa Port, he spent over N1.2 million to take the same container out of Apapa to Sagamu.

According to CEOs of manufacturing firms earlier quoted, government must deliberately conduct a comprehensive review of all the contributory factors and consciously implement ongoing reforms in a manner that all port-related challenges that seemingly appear to have defied all solutions are permanently resolved.

Empty containers

There are several empty containers in Apapa, constituting nuisance to the port city. Inside the ports, there are thousands of containers that delivered goods into Nigeria but are stuck at the ports because of lack of corresponding goods to export. The reason is that exports of finished products always pale into insignificance when compared with import counterparts.

In the second quarter of 2020, exports (including crude oil and minerals) amounted to 36 percent of total trade estimated at N6.242 trillion. Finished and agricultural products comprised merely N347 billion, representing just 5.6 percent of the total trade, according to National Bureau of Statistics’ (NBS) Foreign Trade Statistics data. This explains why empty containers stay on Apapa bridges for months.

Bad roads

This situation is worsened by bad roads to the port city. Though the major roads into the ports are under rehabilitation, delay getting into the port has created room for corrupt security officials, including the police, the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LATSMA), FRSC and customs officials who are profiting from the mayhem.

Tony Anakebe, managing director of Gold-Link Investment Limited, told our correspondent that the traffic congestion in Apapa had become bad, and was caused by the security operatives managing traffic in that area, who now took the job as a lucrative venture.

According to Anakebe, any of the officers redeployed to other parts of the city must bribe their way back to Apapa due to the money generated from the checkpoints mounted along the roads leading to ports.

Trucks spend two months on a queue inside Apapa to get into the port city to lift cleared containers, attracting demurrage daily and rentage fees. Any importer who has a time-sensitive order has no choice but to pay corrupt government officials including police, LASTMA and Customs officials to move him further along the line.

Paradise lost

Ayo Vaughan, chairman, Apapa GRA Residents Association, told BusinessDay that he left Ikoyi for Apapa because, as of the time he came here, Apapa was a paradise. This was 30 years ago when Apapa and Ikoyi were the same.

“Today, Apapa is paradise lost. In those days, it took only 15 minutes to get to Awolowo Road from Apapa. Now, I am afraid to go out. It has happened in some cases that residents, including me, have had cause to turn back and sleep elsewhere because the road is impenetrable. During the day, the roads are better, but in the night when no one is in control, it is as bad as it can be. At this time, the trailer drivers are in control,” he said.

Empty Houses

Vaughan further said many houses in Apapa were already empty. “You do not expect somebody to come and live in a house of N5 million per annum and right in front of his house, somebody is frying akara or doing any other form of business. So, we have houses that are not rentable, not leasable nor even sellable,” he said.

He said a woman in one of the streets in the port city put up her house for sale at N65 million, but nobody wanted to buy. Just a few days ago, he said, the woman, in anger, sold the house for N40 million and left the area for good.

He said in spite of this ugly situation, Lagos State government still collected tenement rates from the residents and expected them to pay same as payable in Ikoyi and Ikeja GRA, though some houses in the area had been empty for three to five years.

“And don’t forget, it is the same government’s policy that is preventing you from renting out those houses. On one street alone, there are many houses, up to 10, that are empty because nobody wants to live in Apapa anymore. That is as a result of environmental degradation,” he explained.

He disclosed there could be up to 40 percent of all the houses in the GRA that were empty, with many retirees depending on rental income from homes for their daily living.

 

Chuka Uroko, Odinaka Anudu, Isaac Anyaogu, Amaka Anagor-Ewuzie & Temitayo Ayetoto