Truck owners’ initiative on trailer parks as metaphor for government failure

The malignant traffic gridlock on Lagos ports access roads has continued to defy solutions.
Not even the sluggish approach of government to the rehabilitation of the collapsed port access roads nor the repairs and opening to the traffic the Ijora bridge was enough to solve the problem.

Daily, port operators and users, including residents in the Apapa port axis, still go through the anguish of the intractable traffic crisis.

Not that government was unconcerned with the problem but it seemed to have been overwhelmed by the sheer size of the gargantuan monster.

The nigeriamaritime360.com is grieved by the daily torture which port users are made to go through on the port access roads despite the seeming government palliative measures.

The traffic monster, which is defiant and repellent to all known cure so far, was a creation of government.

The post-concession period at the Nigerian Ports has brought self-inflicted agony caused by the traffic gridlock that was the fall out of indiscriminate parking of articulated vehicles, indecent location of tank farms and total collapse of port access roads. Government has displayed an appalling sense of laxity and gross incompetence in the drafting of the port concession agreement which we believe engendered the current traffic gridlock.

The lack of holding bays and trailer parks which form the nucleus of the current traffic crisis was the loophole in the lease agreement that was maliciously exploited by the terminal operators and the shipping companies.

In the lease agreement, the component of the cargo dues has holding bay fees charged by the terminal operators. So, the terminal operators are to provide holding bays because they receive the containers and transfer the containers to the shipping companies. So, that is the agreement between them and the shipping companies.

Unfortunately, the two service providers exploited the laxity in the agreement to treat the directive by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) on the need for them to provide these facilities with utmost contempt and ignominy.

We are bewildered by the timidity and apparent helplessness of the NPA to wield the big stick on defaulting service providers on the need to provide holding bays.

What was more amusing was the haste at which the port authority quickly reversed itself last year when it suspended some erring shipping companies on their failure to provide holding bays.

Another area of concern is the manner government concessioned every available space inside the ports which prior to the concession programme served as holding bays for trailers.

Prior to the time the ports were concessioned, there were holding bays at Tin Can, Brawa, Lilypond and the Apapa Port complex.

There was another holding bay under the bridge established by the Federal Government while that of Tin Can is at the front of the canteen.

Most of the holding bays at Apapa then were inside the ports with effective call up system.

There was a trailer park at Berger constructed by the Lagos State government under the Lateef Jakande regime.

Unfortunately, all these are no more which underline the failure of government that has now resulted to the daily agony being experienced by port users on the port access roads.

However, we must not fail to recognise the efforts of the NPA, despite its failings in the area of enforcing the directive on holding bays on the service providers.

The authority has called on both the Lagos and Ogun state governments to establish trailer parks to suck the wandering and parked trucks on the roads, since such responsibility, according to the NPA, was not within its purview. This was in addition to the call for tender for licensing of trailer parks and holding bays from private individuals and groups.

However, the response has been poor according to the NPA.

We must nevertheless laud the initiative of the Lagos State government in this regard.

Akinwunmi Ambode, the Lagos State Governor in 2018 promised that the state would construct a 5,000 capacity truck terminal in the Ijanikin axis of the state while the 5,000 capacity of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (ABAT) truck terminal at Orile-Iganmu would be expanded to 1000 capacity.

We couldn’t ascertain the veracity of the claim made in 2017 by Babatunde Fashola, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing that the Federal Government- initiated 340,000 capacity trailer park was 96 percent completed.

Neither could we authenticate the claim similarly made in February by Mr Funsho Adebiyi, Director, Highway Service, South West, that the 400 -capacity Tin-Can trailer park to be operated by the NPA is ready for use.

Why we are sceptical about these claims was the fact that there are still long queues of stationary trailers along the Lagos ports access roads, stretching as far back as Ijora, Ojuelegba end of Wharf road while the mile-two end stretches as far back to Cele bus stop along Apapa-Oshodi Expressway.

We are however excited by the response of trucks owners to this challenge.

The haulage operators who congregate under a common umbrella called Council of Maritime Transport Union and Association (COMTUA) have decided to take up the gauntlet by acquiring trailer parks for members to use at a fee.

This initiative, which is in line with the call by the NPA to private individuals and groups to come for licensing trailer parks, has further exposed the hypocrisy of government over the issue of trailer park and holding bays.

One would have thought that with the seeming efforts of Federal and Lagos State governments over this issue, there wouldn’t have been any need for the distraught trucks owners to go into this trailer park acquisition.

We are by no means saying such initiative is neither abnormal nor strange but if government has been sincere with its claims of acquisition of these facilities, all the stranded articulated vehicles on the road would have disappeared.

Our suspicion of government insincerity on this issue is further accentuated by the recent incident.

In February, during the Presidential campaign visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to Lagos, all the articulated vehicles on the Lagos roads suddenly disappeared with the swiftness of a lightning a day before Mr President came.

With the same alacrity, those vehicles reappeared soon after Mr President left the state.

It clearly shows that NPA and the Lagos State government, with right metal attitude and political will could arrest the malignant traffic gridlock on Lagos ports access roads.

We are saddened by the fact that private individuals and groups who are now being urged to construct holding bays and trailer parks will prey on the users of these facilities who will in turn pass the cost to the consumers of their services.

This scenario has started to play out even among the haulage operators under the aegis of (COMTUA) as they have levied the sum of N10,000 daily on each of the trailer operator who wishes to use the facilities.

As laudable as their initiative is, we find the N10,000 charge too exorbitant considering the number of days a trailer may stay before its owner gets a job.

This high cost will automatically be passed on to the importers and their agents who will equally pass it to the final consumers.

The spiral effects of this cost are better experienced than imagined.

We can only appeal that the cost be adjusted downwards to starve off any unpleasant chain reaction.

We want to equally appeal to the NPA to rise up to the challenge of ensuring that this issue is not exploited to further compound the high cost of doing business at the ports.

We also urge the Federal Government and Lagos State government in collaboration with the NPA to display sincere commitment and political will in tackling the issue of the unending traffic gridlock on the port access roads to end the daily misery of port users