The Senate Committee on Marine Transport has said the construction of a holding bay for trucks at the Tin-Can Island Port, Lagos, is 95 per cent ready.
The Chairman of the committee, Senator Ahmed Sani, said this during a session with stakeholders in Lagos on how to find a lasting solution to the gridlock at Apapa.
He also said that N1.5bn would be needed to complete the project.
He said it was the resolution of the Senate that the committee should come to Lagos to see things and hold the session with stakeholders.
Sani said, “We have seen the holding bay being prepared for trucks. One of the members of this committee who is now the chairman of the works committee, that is Senator Kabiru Gaya from Kano, called the Ministry of Works and discovered that the contractor had already done about 95 per cent of the work. What the firm needs is the payment to complete the project; about N1.5bn has not yet been paid.
“We will ensure that the money is paid to the contractor so that the park can be completed and in the short run reduce the congestion by directing all the trucks there.”
He said the committee was in Lagos with a goal of coming up with short, medium and long-term plans that will ensure that the problem of gridlock at Apapa was tackled.
The senators, led by Sani, had earlier gone to the Apapa Port Complex to assess the state of the roads and later moved on to Tin-Can Island Port for the same on the spot assessment of the roads and traffic situation.
At the Tin-Can Island Port, the entourage could not proceed because trucks and tankers had taken over both sides of the road.
The Assistant General Manager, Civil Engineering, Nigerian Ports Authority, Ndubuisi Nwankwo, told the senators that the gridlock was a daily feature on the TinCan Island-Coconut route.
He said, “From here, all the way down to Coconut is usually like this; the area has been taken over by trucks and tankers. To get access to this place from Coconut is almost impossible, because the entire place is blocked.”
The Managing Director, NPA, Mr. Habib Abdullahi, in his speech during the session, lamented the negative effect of the Apapa gridlock on port and economic activities.
He said, “We will not be battling this problem if there was connectivity between the ports and rail as it was in the past. Before, we used to have two trains going daily from Apapa to Kano; now it is one train weekly. Then the transportation of petroleum products to the hinterland was done by rail.”
Abdullahi also called attention to the present danger constituted by the tank farms at Apapa.
He said the consequences would be terrible in the event of a disaster and called for the importation of crude oil through other seaports in the country.
The Executive Secretary, Nigerian Shippers’ Council, Mr. Bello Hassan, said about 5,000 to 7,000 tankers were plying the Orinle-Iganmu- Apapa route daily.
He said, “We should not have this number of trucks and tankers on our roads everyday but we do. This has contributed to the gridlock at Apapa, at great cost to the economy. There are also no adequate holding bays for these trucks to wait until they have been called up to the ports.
“We should consider inter modal form of transport; the use of barges and railway to move petroleum products. This will help ease the traffic situation.”
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