The end of the year is here again, accompanied by increased importation activity at the nation’s seaports. In this report, SAMSON ECHENIM writes about the worsening current traffic situation within the ports, an indication that the authorities responsible have, so far, been unable to learn from the past.
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Normally, as the year draws to a close with the Yuletide, economic activities increase, and in Nigeria, particularly, import activities hit their highest? points, as the period signals unprecedented increase in importation of goods like cars, clothes, shoes, electronics and other gift items by Nigerians residing both at home and abroad.
The period is characterised by increased importation of petroleum motor spirit (PMS, popularly known as fuel), diesel and aviation fuel, due to increased consumption of the products occasioned by increase in movement of people in frenzied, last-minute pursuit of economic goals as the year comes to an end.
Trading and other commercial activities are usually at their peak, and a chunk of the fuel and diesel is consumed by transporters moving the imported goods from the ports to warehouses, from where they are moved to the stores to be sold.
Every year, the yuletide, gathers momentum from the month of November, accompanied by acute traffic congestion within the Tincan Island and the Apapa ports in Lagos, Nigeria’s busiest ports. These traffic conditions have however, constituted a head ache for importers, their agents and transporters alike.
Unfortunately, the ports authority, charged with the provision of basic infrastructure within and around the port complexes, appear not to have learnt from the experience of past years, as the problem continues to pose a challenge to the nation’s second largest revenue generating sector.
So far, the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) has turned in over N600bn into the country’s coffers, as income realised from tariffs on imports and exports. Despite the huge annual returns, the federal government has neglected the maritime sector, until recently, after embarrassing media reports attracted the attention of the coordinating minister of the economy and minister of finance,? Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Already, the congestion has begun to set in, as some shipping companies and terminal concessionaires are now bracing up to the seasonal challenges of managing their terminals and bays to lessen difficulties in clearing the imports. These activities herald another season of prolonged pain and agony for port users, as the perennial traffic conditions on major port roads worsen, wasting precious time and causing loss of huge amount of? man hours.
The road connecting the Tincan Island port (phases 1 and 2) has been under construction for quite some time, and the on-going construction activities have worsened traffic conditions, because the front portion of the port has been converted to a container holding bay by one of the shipping companies, causing both lanes to be out of use.
Traffic along the PTML terminal road has also come to a standstill, as trucks and tricycles that once conveyed port users from the first Tincan gate to the PTML terminal have ceased operating, due to the size of the road, leaving the job for commercial motorcyclists.?
The decision by the APM Terminals to create an exit for trucks carrying containers through the common port road at the Apapa Port is causing severe traffic difficulties. Transporters spend nearly half of the day trying to exit the port with laden containers, after which they encounter another traffic jam on the main road.
According to reports by customs agents, the road inside the Apapa Port is in such bad condition that, each day, at least a container falls off a truck.
“Before long, you will hear the sound of a fallen container. Every day, since the APMT opened exit for laden containers through this road, we have been passing through so much sufferings and agony. The entrance and exit road leading to the company’s office complex and that of? Dangote Flour is very good and free, but APMT wants Nigerians to suffer, that is why they are not concerned about the road,” a customs agent, Bayo Adegbenla, told LEADERSHIP.
A truck driver at the Apapa Port, Ucheoha Christian said Nigerians are always eager to blame truck drivers for problems on the ports’ roads without realising that there are no parking spaces for these trucks.
“The problem of the roads, both inside and outside the port, seem to have overwhelmed the government, but this is not so. Government must not forget that after oil, this is the next source of revenue. Sometimes, I think that rather than show interest, the government is only after the money which the Customs are collecting from agents and importers. We are tired of talking about one issue month after month, and year after year.”
The country management of the leading concessionaire of Nigerian ports, APM Terminals (APMT) said the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) must live up to the challenge of maintaining road infrastructure inside the ports, and cited the company’s decision to create an exit for laden containers through the common port road as part of the concession agreement with the NPA.
However, agents and port users said the move by the concessionaire was one meant to cause hardship to Nigerians.
However, in an electronic mail to our correspondent, the company’s chief operating officer, Koen De Backker, said the decision was in line with the master plan which it jointly arrived at with the NPA, and added that the seaport authority should be blamed for not looking into the infrastructural state of the place under its management.
“Part of the master plan in our concession agreement is that we would build separate entry and exit gates.? Our master plan foresaw exit to the common road which, indeed, is an NPA facility. The APMT believes that the condition of the NPA road is below standards, but it is for the NPA to maintain and or rebuild that road,” De Backker said in the mail.
He added: “When we took over our part of the Apapa Port Complex, we became one of four concessionaires in the port complex.? Before concessioning, there was one operator (NPA) and in order for the port to become more functional (which was obviously a qualification requirement), we had to present the NPA and Bureau of Public Entreprise (BPE) with our master plan on how we would run our concession.
“One part of our infrastructural development was that we would build in and out gates, and that the out-gate would lead into the common road before exiting the Apapa Port Complex.? We built the gate as planned, but the port authority did not do its part and this is what customers and port users are complaining about,” he said.
At Ports and Cargo, PTML Terminals and Five Star in Tincan Island Port, there is no space for vessels to off load, because the Five Star Terminal is already filled with cars, and the APM Terminals management has also affirmed that the terminal is currently very busy.
In a letter to intimate its customers on new arrangements to manage the outflow of imports, the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) said the MSC Hailey, one of its vessels which arrived late October was diverted to the APM Terminals with all containers stemmed to an off-dock terminal. Before now the MSC vessels only berthed at Ports and Cargo Terminal at the Tincan Port, managed by the Sifax Group.
“In view of the congestion at the P&CHS Terminal (Ports & Cargo), it is no longer possible to retain containers for on dock deliveries, and vessels will be regularly stemmed to off-docks till the port congestion eases. We call upon all importers to track their containers on our website,” MSC’s commercial manager for exports and imports, Pawan Kapur, said in a letter to customers, which was obtained by LEADERSHIP.
Kapur said pre-berthing delays at the preceding ports of Lome and Tema, as well as at the Tincan, have set back the vessel schedules, as it caused most vessels to sail behind schedule. This, he noted, resulted in the accumulation of cargo at the trans-shipment ports, and in longer transit time for importers.
“The on-going expansion of the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway has affected the flow of traffic into the access roads to the Tincan Port terminals, and created challenges in the movement of containers.
“While the empty containers can be returned to the P&CHS Terminals (Ports and Cargo), we have also made alternative arrangements for the return of the empty containers,” Kapur added
All these imports which are already putting pressure on the terminals will have to leave the ports through the congested in-roads of the ports into the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway. During the October 10, 2011 visit to the ports, by the minister of transport, Senator Idris Umar and the economic management team, he said repair of all roads inside the ports would start immediately as part of the port reforms.
Since the issue of responsibility for the maintenance of the inner port roads has become an object of controversy between the port manager, NPA and the concessionaires, maritime stakeholders have said that it is possible that the authority did not take road maintenance seriously as an important aspect of the agreement.
The credibility of the agreement is also questioned by some stakeholders who said port concession is yet to have constitutional backing.
“Presently, port concession has no legal framework. Concessionaires have aided a lot of cost implicating acts, because of the absence of constituted authority,”? said the? president, National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA), Lucky Eyis Amiwero, during an industry forum held in Lagos recently.
The situation of the road outside the ports is still very bad, and though the contractor, Borini Prono, attempted some sort of maintenance in August, the tar has been washed away again, causing the traffic situation to worsen. On-going rehabilitation of the Oshodi/Apapa Expressway, around Mile Two, is not helping, either.
The project contracted to construction giant, Julius Berger Nigeria Plc., covers both wings of the expressway, from Oshodi through Mile Two down to the Rainbow end of the expressway, but the Apapa end of the road has, so far, been unattended to.
In July, the federal government directed Julius Berger to begin immediate rehabilitation of the failed portion of the road after incessant media reports on the state of the road attracted works minister, Mike Onolememen, who visited the area and issued the directive. The affected portions of the road stretch from the Rainbow end of the expressway to Oshodi.
Meanwhile, the Apapa end of the road has become bad again after the Federal Government carried out palliative rehabilitation on the road barely three months ago – the Apapa end was contracted to Borini Prono, who had to do something drastic to ease traffic back in July. Main maintenance could not be done due to non-availability of funds.
In a swift reaction, the Federal Controller of Works, Mr.Ejike Mgbemena, refuted the report, and denied the allegation that the works ministry was short of funds.
Rehabilitation of the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway was not among the roads for which the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved N19bn in August this year, an indication that the Apapa end of road is not part of the government’s present plan. But the government claimed that the road was not included because it was an “on-going project.”
Rehabilitation of a part of the Apapa Road, instead of the whole stretch will make no impact, as the road gets narrower and busier around the Apapa axis, beginning from the Tincan Island Port, where drivers of very long vehicles have opted to use a part of the road for parking while they await their turn to off load or load up, leaving a narrow portion of the flooded road for traffic.