Operators lament government neglect of Tincan port road

ZION Olalekan     |       


Maritime operators at the Tin Can Island Port have lampooned the Nigerian Ports Authority over what they described as a shoddy approach towards palliative repair of the Tin Can port axis of the Apapa-Oshodi expressway. 

Port Manager, Tin Can Island Port of NPA, Emmanuel Akporherhe had told journalists recently that the authority was applying palliative measures prior to fixing of the road.

Nigeriamaritime360.com correspondent who visited the construction site on Wednesday noted that work was already ongoing on one section of the road. 

While expressing disappointment at the project, a chieftain of Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) at Tin Can chapter, Alhaji Akanni Balogun said the palliative would not last more than three weeks, going by the way it is being handled.  

He lamented that NPA and the Ministry of Works has watched for three years while the road completely deteriorated. According to him, operators are now subjected to daily use of motorbikes at N500 in order to access their offices. 

Alhaji Balogun said the NPA intervention is not what the road needed.

“What type of machinery are they displaying, is it not just ordinary grader? They are using ordinary hand tools, If they want to embark on real construction, that is not the kind of equipment they should be using, at the end of this project, a single day of rain would wash everything away”

“It is the same thing they are doing at the Coconut and Sunrise axis, I understand that this is being done by Ibru complex.
Government is making billions from the road and yet they are overlooking the road which leads to Tin Can port and Apapa”

“Automatically now, Tincan port is closed down, you see containers falling down. The country is looking for investors but I can assure you that no investor will be willing to come and invest here under such conditions”

“What they are doing is face saving and not real construction, for the past three years they have been watching as the road kept deteriorating, from mile 2 now,  we take bike at N500 before we can get to work at a very risky cost”  

“The contractors do not have names,  they are local people and other locally employed labourer” 

Corroborating this view, Vice Chairman of ANLCA at Tincan chapter, Mr. Ossy Mike said that what operators needed was a complete overhaul of the Tin Can port access road.

He described the NPA intervention as just a palliative measure and not a full construction. 

“It is not the type we have in Apapa where the project was being properly handled”

“This is not what we really need, the Tincan road needs a total overhaul, if you look at the road now,  there is no gutter, so when the rains start now you will see water on the road, this is not what we need”

“What we need is the type of construction at Apapa,  this palliative measure would not last, in the next few days,  you will see port holes coming back” he said.

The NPA Managing Director, Hadiza Bala Usman said contracts have been awarded to a group of companies to reconstruct the Tin Can Port Road on a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) basis.

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