Adegboyega Oyetola, minister of Marine and Blue Economy, has promised to eliminate extortions of truck drivers, illegal checkpoints, and unapproved parking of trucks along the port access road within one week.
The minister blamed the above-listed illegalities for traffic congestion along the port access roads.
Speaking at a stakeholders’ meeting held at the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) headquarters in Lagos with the theme ‘Review of Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Truck Traffic Management along the Lagos Port Corridor,’ Oyetola assured the stakeholders that the issues would be dealt with within one week.
Represented by Busayo Stephen Fakinlede, technical Aide to the Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, he said a committee had been set up to review all the grouses and to suggest solutions.
“We have already set up a committee and all the solutions proffered here will be put together for the committee to review and in a week, some of these issues will be resolved,” he said.
According to him, the maritime industry is germane to the development of the economy and the goal is to ensure that stakeholders do not lose money due to delays.
“The issues that have to do with infrastructure will take a little time, but the solutions start from now and we are already taking them one by one,” he said.
Earlier, Sola Giwa, special adviser to the Lagos State Governor on Transport, said the state had earlier resolved to move parked trucks out of the roads.
He called on the management of NPA to review its Minimum Safety Standards (MSS) on trucks because many rickety trucks are still playing the port roads.
He advised the minister to work with the Inspector General of Police to rid the roads of miscreants and police officers extorting truckers along the corridor.
“There are too many roadblocks and security agencies and officers collecting money from truckers,” he said.
He commended the efforts of the electronic call-up system managers over the years but advised them not to jettison their core mandate of traffic management.
“E-call up system is working, don’t scrap it. Your solution is superb, but you must not turn yourself into a revenue-generating agency,” Giwa said.
…AMATO says e-tag to eliminate call-up theft, racketeering
The Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO) in its position paper, said the electronic call-up system would have been a success. Still, interference by government and non-governmental actors, system manipulation by owners of NPA-approved parks, terminals low productivity, and uncontrolled release of Export Processing Terminals (EPTs), among other factors lead to an increase in traffic along the corridor.
AMATO therefore called on the ministry to help address the menace of hoodlums popularly called area boys mounting illegal roadblocks.
The group added that EPTs should operate in line with the SOP in releasing trucks and deploying e-tag technology to eliminate theft of the call-up system identity or bypassing of the system’s procedure.
