• Friday, March 29, 2024
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BusinessDay

Apapa economy seen returning in 2020, but concerns remain

Apapa accident 3 (1)

Expectation is high that the economy of Apapa, Nigeria’s premier port city, will turn the corner by the end of 2020 and that will be happening on the back of improved roads infrastructure in the city.

The economy of the port city which accounts for about 75 percent of Nigeria’s export and import activities, is estimated at N25 billion a day. But this argument can hardly be sustained now given the sorry state of the port city at the moment.

Apapa has a degraded environment from which many residents and businesses have relocated, leaving homes and business premises that are not only empty but also losing value by the day.

Besides the residents who suffer over N200 million annual rental income loss, businesses still in the city are operating at sub-optimal levels while many of the maritime activities such as clearing and forwarding and other agency services are currently on holiday.

Again, Benjamin Bem, a member of the House of Representatives, was quoted recently as saying the House had commenced investigation into the N600 billion monthly revenue loss at the Apapa and Tin Can Island Ports in Lagos.

Whether the story is about Apapa property owners, business owners, or sundry stakeholders, the N600 billion monthly loss is caused by the gridlock/congestion in the city and the dilapidated infrastructure.

But Babatunde Fashola, Minister, Works and Housing, sees the battered economy of the port city returning full scale when the on-going roads reconstruction and rehabilitation in and around the port city are completed by the end of 2020.

Besides Creek and Liverpool Roads which are being reconstructed, Fashola said at the weekend that the reconstruction and expansion of the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway  was about Apapa economy, describing it as a strategic economic intervention by the federal government.

He hoped that all the businesses and even residents that had left the port city because of infrastructure challenges, would come back and that would mean the rejuvenation of Apapa economy.

Concerns, however, remain about the provision of infrastructure and the return of the Apapa economy. Some stakeholders are of the view that until there is efficiency in port operation and management of traffic in the port city, its economy would continue to suffer.

“The Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) must automate its operations for there to be sanity in Apapa,” a major stakeholder in traffic management in Apapa, told BusinessDay at the weekend.

The stakeholder, who did not want to be identified, noted that even if all the access roads in Apapa were paved, it would not solve the gridlock problem. “NPA has to tell itself the honest truth by admitting that its failure to come up with a working call-up system for the trucks is a major drawback,” he said.

Ayo Vaughan, the chairman of Apapa GRA Residents Association, agrees, recalling that out of frustration, the Presidential Task Team (PTT) on the restoration of order in Apapa had expressed lack of cooperation from NPA, wondering why that should be so given that the PTT was established by the Presidency .

Kayode Opeifa, the executive vice chairman of the team, says that, though infrastructure was very critical to restoring order in Apapa, port efficiency must be in place.

“For so long as port operations are not efficient, there must be trucks on the road because they cannot gain entry into the ports and these are the real issues that must be addressed,” he said

Opeifa is also worried that corruption has refused to give way in Apapa. “What we have here is a case of corruption fighting back. Those who feel that the task team has taken over where they ‘chop’ from are not relenting; they are fighting back,” the vice chairman told BusinessDay at the weekend.