NPA bares its fang on service providers - threatens to sanction non- compliance on holding bays

Funso Olojo |

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has threatened to wield a big stick on shipping companies and terminal operators for failure to comply with an agreement with the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) on the usage of holding bays.

In a press statement signed by Malam Isah Suwaid, the Assistant General Manager, Corporate and Strategic Communications of NPA, the hard stance of the agency has become imperative in order to restore sanity into the traffic logjam at the port access roads.

It would be recalled that the NPA had directed that all the shipping companies and terminal operators should establish holding bays where they should warehouse empty containers found to be the cause of traffic gridlock at the port access roads.

However, all of the service providers observed the directive in the breach.

Their non-compliance was said to have resultedt in the 10-day strike action by truck drivers.

“The current situation results from the reported failure of some of the shipping companies and terminal operators to comply with the agreement on the usage of holding bays reached in November, 2017.”

“The agreement which was reached in November, 2017 between the Shipping Companies, Terminal Operators and the NPA, compelled all Shipping Companies and Terminal Operators to provide holding bays for their trucks and containers through the newly adopted call-up system.

“These were part of the resolutions adopted at the end of two meetings between the Managing Director NPA, Hadiza Bala Usman and the leadership of Truck drivers and Maritime Workers Union in response to recent protests by trucks drivers at the Lagos Port Complex (LPC) and Tin Can Island Port (TCIP).

“Managing Director informed the meeting on Wednesday (11th July, 2018) that the Authority has launched an investigation into the level of compliance or non-compliance to the agreements reached between the Authority, Shipping Companies and Terminal Operators warning that “any company found to have contravened this agreement will be sanctioned”.

According to the statement, Hadiza Usman explained that the agency had consulted widely with all stakeholders before the introduction of the traffic call up system , adding that the system has proved to be the most effective way of managing traffic in the Apapa axis till date.

The NPA boss has also promised to investigate allegation of extortion against government officials, including NPA officials, involved in the traffic call up system, vowing that she would make whoever is found culpable to face the appropriate provision of the law.

“As the Authority also investigates allegations of extortion by officials of the Nigerian Navy, The Nigeria Police Force and NPA security personnel by the truck drivers with assurances that culprits will be made to face the laws of the country, we appeal to stakeholders to give chance for a peaceful resolution of the issues at stake.”

“We have consequently launched an investigation into the level of compliance or non-compliance to agreements reached between the Authority, Shipping Companies and Terminal Operators on the immediate use of holding bays for trucks and containers until such trucks were called into the ports through the call- up system adopted in November 2017.

“Any company found to have contravened this agreement will be sanctioned.

Both the chairman of the Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO) Chief Remi Ogungbemi and the President-General of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) Comrade Adeyanju Waheed expressed their support for the call-up system now in place for the trucks, saying the system has sanitized traffic congestion on the Apapa axis.

“The meeting between the NPA management and the Union leadership was in furtherance to getting amicable solution to issues arising from the operation of the call-up system as part of the authority’s Traffic Management Strategy, alleged extortion by security agencies and the utilisation of holding bays by shipping companies and terminal operators as defined by the November, 2017 agreement.”