The Managing Director of Trucks Transit Parks Limited, Jama Onwubuariri, operator of the electronic call-up system also known as ETO, in this interview with ADAKU ONYENUCHEYA, talks about the bottlenecks limiting the smooth flow of traffic into the ports despite measures to address the issue and the success recorded two years into the scheme implementation.
We have also created employment for over 240 people directly. None of these people were employed in 2020. We have also created improved efficiency at the port. Before now, if somebody wants to come to the port to carry cargo, let’s say your container has landed and you are asked to come and carry it, you cannot say you will be there in three days, you will budget between two to three weeks for the truck to make it into the port.
Before now, export trucks are particularly prone to extortion, this is because the law enforcement agents who were managing the road knew that you are in a hurry to take the goods into the port, because there is a timeline for you to bring it in so it doesn’t perish or damage and a ship is also waiting to carry that export cargo to where it is needed. So the export trucks usually become soft targets for the enforcement agents.
So you pay us for a service. If you have your park, you don’t need to use another person’s park. You don’t pay anything. You can move from there to what is called a pre-gate. The arrangement is that a private park that is owned by you with your trucks, and then your trucks wait there until you are invited to the pre-gate, so, when your truck moves from your park to another park, you pay for its use. So, that cost is what has been agreed from 2020 and it has not changed.
Some other people pay, not just for the booking, but also pay to have his truck jump the queue. He asks for the amount to give to settle the law enforcement agents on the road so that, even though his truck is the 10th in the queue, it would be placed number one. So some do pay that way and collude with the enforcement agents on the roads to allow those trucks to jump the queue.
Maintaining your brakes, going for periodic services, changing the oil in the truck, and making sure that your windshield, seat belts and other equipment within the vehicle are in top condition will be very difficult. So, looking at it from the point of view of the transporter, it is not easy for them to maintain their trucks the way we see trucks in other countries.
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