NARTO Charges FG to Concession Port Access Roads, Construct Weigh Bridges

ZION Olalekan

The National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) has called on the Federal Government to concession the major access roads leading into the Apapa and Tin Can Island Ports.

The association also called on the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) on the need to construct weigh bridges at Tin Can and Apapa Ports.

National Secretary of NARTO, Comrade Aloga Ogbogo in a chat with Nigeriamaritime360.com lamented that the absence of weigh bridges at the ports has led to the roads being destroyed by heavyweight cargoes.

Comrade Ogbogo noted that what the government needs to do is to concession the roads to private investors who would maintain the road and continue to repair it.

According to him, road transport owners are at the receiving end because the roads have continued to impact negatively on their trucks.

“The price of one tyre is N150,000 and it would interest you to know that in the whole of this country, there is no tyre manufacturing company now.

“The roads are very bad, the government has not done the needful, we are at the receiving end, we are not happy going through these hideous and stressful journeys”.

The NARTO scribe stressed that the weigh bridges should be positioned at strategic points along the port corridors.

“Trucks plying the roads are not supposed to surpass the required tonnage, there should be a way of trying to bring the violators to book, if you go into the Apapa port and Tin Can Port, and you will not find any weigh bridge there.

“When you go to the port, you would see heavy duty equipment, big time electricity equipment or industrial machines coming into the country and it is trucks that are used to convey these cargoes.

“There is no way you put your truck on the road and one or two tyres would not be destroyed, the irony of it is that a good truck can be destroyed by a bad road”, he said.