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Carpet NIMASA, Shipping Companies, Terminal Operators for Conspicuously absent from the Summit.
Stakeholders on Wednesday 14th April 2021 at the Rockview Hotel, Apapa, Lagos, commended the Maritime Journalists Association of Nigeria (MAJAN) for its consistent advocacy in finding solutions to the perennial traffic gridlock in spite of continue silence by government agencies.
President of MAJAN, Comrade Ray Ugochukwu also the editor- in-chief of the powerful pen newspaper in his welcome address said the Apapa Traffic gridlock was a clog in the wheel of progress, noting that those who fashioned the port reforms had a hidden agenda which has, invariably, put the nation’s economy in a quandry.
He said that before the port concession, trucks were fully accommodated within the ports but became displaced after the port concession of 2006, with no provision made for holding bays by shipping companies.
Specifically, licenses were granted to private individuals by government to build tank farms along the port corridors in order to lift products and this attracted the presence of petroleum tankers from across the country.
According to Ugochukwu, with regard to the port concession of 2006, experts from the Port of Antwerp cautioned Nigeria to “make haste slowly” in reforming the port sector, noting that it took them 50 years to fully reform their ports. However, the Nigerian authorities disregarded the timely advise of the experts and plunged Nigeria into a hasty port reform process with immense consequences, including loss of jobs for about 9000 staffers of Nigerian Ports Authority.
He disclosed that the midwives of port reform in Nigeria were the same people who conducted port reforms in Madagascar but with due diligence, their economies do not run on “Okada” the way that of Nigeria has been run since 2006!
Ugochukwu observed that, with the menace of the gridlock and its attendant problems, importers and clearing agents have had to pay through their noses to move their cargoes from the port to the hinterland and other destinations within Lagos.
“The most stunning revelation a month ago was that to move a container from Tin Can Island Port to National Bus Stop, a distance of less than one kilometre, shut up to N1.2 million from N70,000 an increase of N1.13 million or 1,614.3 per cent.”
He commended the NPA management for introducing eto as part of efforts to solve the problem of the gridlock.
The event witnessed the presentation of two papers by leading experts. The Lead Paper was by a Multimodal Transport Planner and Senior Forwarder of Nigeria, and Registrar of NAGAFF Academy, Fwrd. Francis Omotosho;
the Second Paper was by the Publisher of MMS Plus and President of League of Maritime Editors & Publishers Mr. Kingsley Anaroke.
Stakeholders agreed that the cloning of NPA E-Call up slips were master-minded by shipping agencies and unpatriotic elements within the port system.
The Summit recommended that for sanity to return to the port access roads, government must:
* Diversify the modes of transportation with increased use of feeder vessels and barges to move cargoes.
* A total overhaul of refineries and pipelines for effective distribution of wet cargo.
* Revoke licenses of oil depot owners at Ibafo and relocate away from port environment
* Reclaim lands around the port area.
Those who attended the Summit included a representatives of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Nigerian Shippers’ Council, Nigeria Customs Service, Nigerian Railway Corporation, Wharf Landing Collecting Fees Authority, Nigeria Union of Journalists, Lagos, ANLCA, NAGAFF, NCMDLCA, business representatives, media practitioners and the general public.
