The Nigerian Ports Authourity (NPA) at the weekend gave a bite to last week’s decision by the Federal Government to intervene in the chaotic traffic situation along the approaches to Lagos ports.
In a statement signed by its General Manager, Corporate and Strategic Communications; Abdullahi Goje, the NPA banned shipping companies from bringing in empty containers to the port.
It also gave November 23, 2017 as the effective date for the take off of new measures which it added as necessary for implementation of Ease of Doing Business in the ports.
Reiterating commitment to enforcing the new guidelines, the NPA vowed to ‘’employ every legal means to ensure that there is sanity on the roads leading to the ports’’.
According to the statement, ‘’with effect from November 23, 2017, all shipping companies must house their empty trucks at their holding bays outside of the port location pending the time for vessel loading’’.
The NPA is also insisting that, “trucks called up to access the port must maintain a single lane profile as designated by new Traffic Management/Enforcement Team, comprising The Nigerian Police, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Lagos State Transport Management Agency (LASTMA), the Nigerian Navy, the National Civil Defence Corps and NPA Security’’
According to the statement , it has also been decided that, from Thursday, “tramping trucks milling around in search of customers within the Port Area will be impounded by the inter-agency Traffic Management/Enforcement Team and dealt with in accordance with the law’’.
The NPA also said it would advertise for the licensing of trailer parks as a way of creating holding bay facilities for truckers.
In addition to the above measures, the NPA also added that it ‘’will deploy an effective call-up system which will link the port gate with the trailer parks facility and as such, trucks will only be called up at the appropriate time’’.
Discussion about this post