There are indications that respite might have finally come the way of motorists, business owners and residents of Apapa, whose environment has been under siege by the activities of trailer and tanker operators, even as the new contractor for the expressway; Julius Berger last week resumed work on the Liverpool-Tin Can Island-Coconut axis of the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway.
There are indications that respite might have finally come the way of motorists, business owners and residents of Apapa, whose environment has been under siege by the activities of trailer and tanker operators, even as the new contractor for the expressway; Julius Berger last week resumed work on the Liverpool-Tin Can Island-Coconut axis of the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway.
Shipping Position Daily gathered that the German construction giant were last month ordered by the Federal Government to take over the construction of the road following the disappointment and failures of the former contractors; Borni Prono.
Downstream petroleum operators at the tank farms located around Coconut axis of Apapa-Oshodi expressway have equally expressed their excitement at the ongoing palliative measures that is being applied by Julius Berger on the expressway. They recounted how the bad roads had halted business activities for several weeks.
In a chat with our correspondent last week, an executive of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) arm of NUPENG; Comrade Nurudeen Adewale commended the Federal Government for finally listening to the lamentation of operators and motorist.
“For now we are happy that our cries are finally yielding result, even though the work going on for now is still palliative measures, but I can assure you that that the road is now very free and activities are going on smoothly”
“Few weeks back, you can hardly access Apapa through Coconut, but right now as we are speaking, Julius Berger has deployed their equipment to start patching the road” Adewale who operates around Acorn Petroleum stated.
He recalled that in the past two months, many businesses have suffered due to the dilapidated express road. According to him, container laden trucks on daily basis fall on petroleum tankers while huge losses were usually incurred in the process.
Another operator at one of the tank farms; Isaac Nyang told our correspondent that loading of petroleum trucks from the depots has now resumed in earnest and that the process is now very fast. He admitted that the number of trucks loaded at the tank farms had reduced few months ago but that this has picked up again.
“Now, not less than 350 trucks are loaded daily from all the tank farms you see in this area, but when the roads were bad, we could hardly load more than hundred or two hundred because before they move from here to make a u-turn under the bridge, they would be stuck” he said.
However, Shipping Position Daily reliably gathered that Julius Berger had been directed to take over the rehabilitation of Coconut portion of the expressway and also asked to do a concrete surfacing to ensure that the work lasts for at least 25 years.
Borni Prono, the contractor that was sacked from the road will now have to continue work on the trailer park project around 2nd gate of the Tin Can Island Port. The contract was awarded to the company about four years ago. The delivery date for the trailer park and the bridge component is January 2015.
Our correspondent learnt that the park has capacity to take about 320 trailers off the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway.
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