E Call-Up: Cost of cargo haulage from Apapa Port drops by 62.5 percent

Abiola Seun

The cost of moving containers from Apapa Port to warehouses has drastically reduced by over 62.5 percent depending on the location of the importers’ warehouse, Trucks Transit Parks Ltd (TTP), has said.

Recall that the Acting Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mohammed Bello Koko, last week said the incremental deployment of the electronic call-up infrastructure for cargo trucks (Eto), launched in February 2021 has resolved the perennial Apapa gridlock.

However, according to statistics obtained by newsmen on Thursday from TTP, moving 20 foot container from Apapa to locations in Lagos, which used to cost between N750, 000 to N800, 000 now cost between N200,000 to N300,000, representing 62.5 percent decrease in cost.

The company further said that moving 40 foot container from Apapa to locations in Lagos, which used to cost between N1,500,000 to N1,600,000 now cost between N400,000 to N750,000, representing about 53.125 percent drop in cost.

While moving containers from the Apapa port to warehouses within Apapa that formerly cost between N200, 000 to N300, 000 has also dropped by 50 percent to N100, 000 to N150, 000.

TTP, which is the private technological firm partnering with the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), to deploy the electronic call-up system used in managing truck movement in and out of ports in Lagos, said that electronic call-up system has been working perfectly in Apapa Port, and has further improved the turnaround time of trucks from two weeks down to average of 60 to 90 hours, depending on the type of cargo carried by the truck.

The Chief Operating Officer of TTP, Temidayo Adeboye, said the company has been able to improve the efficiency of the electronic call-up such that human interface has been eliminated to a large extent and trucks that fail to follow the right procedure no longer have access into Apapa Port.

“Today, trucks must enter the transit parks to be able to access the port and we are using timing belt to batch and schedule different categories of trucks.

” This is partly the reason why trucks that pay their ways to the port do not have access because the access barriers would not open for them,” he said.

Continuing, he explained, “We will continue to improve on the technology by removing human interface so that the call-up will work better.

“Eight months into our operations, Eto has never been hacked as was wrongly perceived by many in the past, however, people used to enter into the port with edited tickets. Today, we have deployed technology that such tickets cannot able to bit.”

Adeboye, however, blamed ongoing construction and heavy concentration of oil and gas tank farms that are not onboard Eto platform for the high volume of traffic witnessed on a daily basis by motorists on the Mile 2- Tin-Can Island Port axis.

He disclosed that Trucks Transit Parks is perfecting plans to bring major and independent oil marketers onboard Eto App to further drive down the gridlock in Apapa.

Also speaking, head of corporate development, Bolaji Akerele alluded to the fact that efficiency of Eto App has reduced the cost at which trucks enter into the port down to between N15, 000 to N25, 000 from between N100, 000 to N150, 000.

He added resistance to change is one of reasons some truckers are finding difficult to abide by the rule and procedure of moving into the port under Eto platform.