The Federal Government has disbanded the Presidential Task Force on Apapa Gridlock headed by a former Lagos State Commissioner for Transport, Kayode Opeifa, as part of efforts to find a solution to the perennial gridlock on the access road leading to the Tin-Can Island Port Complex.
Magdalene Ajani, permanent secretary, Federal Ministry of Transportation, disclosed this in Lagos on Friday during a meeting with stakeholders including officials of the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Seaport Terminal Operators Association of Nigeria (STOAN), truck owners and representatives of shipping companies.
She also disclosed that a new team would be reconstituted to manage traffic on the port roads.
Ajani said the blockade of Tin-Can Island Port by trucks due to the activities of different government officials, truck owners and drivers was no longer tolerable and must be dealt with decisively.
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She said before the deployment of an electronic call-up system by NPA in January 2021 to manage the movement of trucks on the port access road, urgent actions must be taken to address the gridlock, which has almost brought cargo evacuation at the Tin-Can Island Port Complex to a halt.
“We must have some form of orderliness. Trucks must only get on the road when they are called to come in, and if that happens we shouldn’t have trucks on the road.
Ajani said the first step to take in addressing the gridlock is to instill discipline on the road.
On the truck electronic call-up system proposed by the NPA, she said, “Before the electronic call-up system starts, you’ve been operating for decades. How have you been calling up your trucks? Manual, I presume. So, why can’t you get back to that and make sure that it is a functional call-up?”
The gridlock, according to her, “just boils down to gross indiscipline”.
She said though instructions have been issued by the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing to ‘open up the roads’ leading to Tin-Can Island Port, this might not solve the gridlock until trucks that have no immediate business at the port are taken off the road.
“The issue of Presidential Task Force or no Presidential Task Force; I threw up that question on Tuesday to the Vice President and he said ‘Madam Perm Sec, that has been disbanded’. I have been trying to get a written document because I clearly stated that I don’t have a written document. If I have the communication as a Ministry, then we should be able to do the needful. So, I have requested that we get the communication both to the Ministry and to all the institutions – Lagos State, the Police, all the parastatals; NPA, NSC, are all part of the transportation,” Ajani explained.
Continuing, she said: “Once we have that, then we can sit down to chart what needs to be charted. We have invited the relevant agencies for meeting to chart the course of who takes responsibility for what in order to decongest the road. That is the immediate thing we have right now to do.
The Permanent Secretary advised FRSC to deploy more truck towing vehicles on the port access roads to remove broken down and unwanted trucks to free up the road.
“We will engage Lagos State and maybe Ministry of Works to know if they have land around those areas to drop impounded trucks. I guess when we begin to do that; people will take us a bit more seriously. So, if you have not been called up and you get on the road, then your vehicle will be towed. By the time you are there for three months, the goods you want to export are there, you begin to talk with the owner of the goods. People will probably be a bit more serious in dealing with what needs to be dealt with,” she said.
Recall that it was earlier reported that the gridlock on Tin-Can road has led to massive congestion at the Port, with no fewer than 40 ships stranded at anchorage due to lack of space to discharge new cargoes at terminals in the port.
While truckers jerked up the cost of moving a container from the Tin-Can Port, Lagos to any other part of the city from N1.2million to N1.8million, due to extortion by security officials managing traffic on the port road.
