Apapa Gridlock : Comptroller Oshoba Enjoins Port Users’ Collaboration, Compliance, Visits Port Manager
Comptroller Emmanuel Oshoba, Customs Area Controller of Apapa Port Command has advised port users of the nation’s premier port to work closely together and comply with extant laws guiding vehicular movement as easy ways to ease the resurfaced Apapa gridlock.
Speaking during an on the spot your of the Port’s internal road, Oshoba urged all sister government agencies, terminal operators, licensed customs agents and haulage companies to work closely to decongest the internal roads and approaches to the port.
He decried a situation where inward bound trucks are delayed before getting to the scanning site and officially exited trucks under transire spend days in queues that inward and outward movements.
According to him, the development delays trade, slows the process of revenue collection and affects the general logistics within the port ecosystem which hitherto allows seamless inflow and outflow.
The Area Controller further described the port as a transit area for in and out movements, not a parking point while decrying the stagnated situation of some transire trucks laden with goods that have been on a spot for days within the port.
He added that the delayed trucks were not caused by customs since they have been exited from customs control but were delayed by agents who either failed to show up or provide the needed go ahead for the drivers to proceed.
Oshoba said “Trucks should not be parked here like this. It impedes trade facilitation. We noticed this development and it is an ugly trend which has been happening in the past, That is congestion.
“We discovered that some of it start from within the port itself and mostly outside the port corridor. There is a saying that a stitch in time saves nine. That’s why I’m out here today.
“We are collaborating with our sister government agencies to find a permanent solution to this gridlock because it will affect our trade and revenue. Following the directives of the Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, we want to collaborate with all concerned and achieve a solution.
“The government agencies are our strategic partners in moving goods fast out of the ports. So, we are using this avenue to implore each and every one of them to be responsible members of the port community. We should encourage our officers and men to have this common agenda for trade facilitation and ease of doing business.
“Sometimes we have agents that are not available to take delivery of their trucks physically. We can’t just hand them over to the drivers because we don’t know who they (the drivers)are and we don’t have any way of identifying or tracing them.
“Immediately you have delays at the gate, the trucks can’t go out and automatically, it affects what happens inside the port. It affects business and the revenue we generate. The more movement we have, the faster we are. Moreso, we are going to start the regime of these pass-through scanners.
By the time we release 150 containers per hour and there is no free flow, definitely there is a backlog. It affects the revenue we are able to generate.
“The agents should be responsible and come around to move out their trucks for us. Outside the gate, again, we have this tendency of some of these buy-and-sell people turning this place to a park like Ore, Ijebu Ode and Sagamu. The port gate is not an avenue for that, it’s not a business area where truck drivers are going to repair their trucks or for leisure. We need to get this out to them. We need to have an attitudinal change of port users and operators.The gate of the port is not a park” Oshoba concluded.
Speaking on the sidelines of Oshoba’s visit the Officer in Charge of the gate, Deputy Comptroller Olufemi Kukoyi confirmed that the traffic gridlock has caused a decline in volume of exited trucks from an average of 1,050 trucks daily to 900.
In a related development, Comptroller Oshoba visited the Port Manager of Lagos Ports Complex, Mr Ibrahim Lawal where NCS and NPA renewed collaboration to promote trade.
The CAC and Port Manager agreed on mutual information sharing while on the part of NPA, the Lawal promised to look into the cause of the traffic.
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