Though work continues on the Tin Can Trailer Park being constructed along the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway with the contractor and sub-contractors struggling to put in place the necessary facilities, the park is about 90 percent occupied by trailers of various shapes and sizes.
A visit to the park shows that the challenges associated with using it are quite enormous. Besides the absence of water, electricity and toilet facilities which have been the excuse for the delay in officially commissioning the park, chaos, disorder, indiscriminate waste disposal are ringing bell at the park.
“I don’t why the government is forcing open an uncompleted park with little or no logistics in place. Basic facilities such as light and water are not there. We don’t even have toilets here. I have told the drivers to be using the river bank for their convenience; what do you expect them to do?” queried a traffic controller who, from his reflexive jacket, looked like a transport union official.
The traffic controller who spoke to BusinessDay during a Friday morning visit, complained of forcing the trailers into an uncompleted park, noting that government did not want the trucks on the road any longer, yet adequate provision was not made to make that possible.
“Another problem here is that the drivers are not only rude, but also unruly. Many of them don’t want to listen to instructions; they are very impatient. Just see how they have littered everywhere with all sorts of refuse; I am afraid that they will soon start doing what they were doing on the road here,” the traffic controller, who did not want to be named, said.
An NPA official at the park shared this view, adding that the cause of the problem was not about the trailers and their drivers. “I think the problem is from the terminal operators who lack the needed capacity for efficient container handling. They seem to be more concerned with their profit than operational efficiency,” the official noted.
But Kayode Opeifa, the Executive Vice Chairman on the Presidential Task Force on Apapa gridlock assured that all these challenges would soon be over as they were discussing with the terminal operators to ensure that the trailers don’t stay at the park for more than 24 hours since the park is meant to serve as a transit camp for the trucks.
Opeifa, who spoke with BusinessDay on phone, explained that the contractor was also doing its best to ensure that the park was completed with all the necessary facilities in place, pointing out however that because it is a contract, there was little or nothing the taskforce could do to hasten delivery.
“Our mandate is to ensure that there are no trucks on Apapa roads and bridges and I am happy we are delivering on our timelines. The trailers have to move into the park even though work is still going on there,” he said, estimating that Ports and Cargo Handling Services Limited handles 1,000 trucks a day whereas the trucks at the park are not up to 300. So, the trucks shouldn’t stay more than a day at the park,” he said.
The Tin Can Trailer Park is a truck parking facility being provided by the federal government as part of measures aimed to tackle the perennial congestion and traffic gridlock which have not only degraded and destroyed Apapa environment, but also ruined its economy.
Contract for the construction of the 400-truck capacity park was awarded to Borini Prono, the Italian construction giant, in 2010. Till date, work is still on-going at the park, making it one of Nigeria’s oldest construction sites.
Our reporter discovered during his Friday morning visit to the site that the contractor was still working on both water and electricity facilities. A borehole was being drilled while electric poles were being amounted amidst indiscriminately packed trucks. The two toilet facilities were under lock and key.
CHUKA UROKO
