After weeks of trying to pin him down for an interview, Roland Ekama last week traced the Chairman Tin Can Island Chapter of Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria [RTEAN] Alhaji Olalere Isiaka to a meeting in Apapa. He opened up on so many sundry industry issues; especially the one that affect vehicular movement in and out of the port city of Apapa.
‘’The challenges we are facing today has to do with harassment by law enforcement agencies at the Abuja Park ‘’
After weeks of trying to pin him down for an interview, Roland Ekama last week traced the Chairman Tin Can Island Chapter of Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria [RTEAN] Alhaji Olalere Isiaka to a meeting in Apapa. He opened up on so many sundry industry issues; especially the one that affect vehicular movement in and out of the port city of Apapa.
‘’The challenges we are facing today has to do with harassment by law enforcement agencies at the Abuja Park ‘’
….Chairman, Tin Can Island Chapter of [RTEAN], Alhaji Olalere Isiaka
What is the outcome of the meeting between the NPA and stakeholders?
The meeting we had with NPA is called operational meeting of Tin Can Island Port, it is a stakeholders’ meeting in which we have various organizations operating in the maritime industry in attendance. We discussed issues surrounding port operation. However the discussion we had with them has to do with the movement of empty containers from the vehicles to the holding bay and to the port and it was part of the discussion with the NPA. Aside that we talked about so many things, but it is what concerns us that we deliberated upon and that has to do with the empty containers that I just mentioned. In the past, we know that the holding bays are not functioning so there is the need to give report to the NPA that all the holding bays are not working and the people in charge of the holding bays are not living up to expectations.
What is the present situation at the port in the area of traffic flow?
Partially the holding bays are working and we have so many of them which includes: Port Express, Comet, Grimaldi ,GIS,Lilypond,SDV1,SDV2,Brawal ,Mitchell and TIS. All these are the holding bays we have around and as we speak, most of them are functioning, but not to full capacity. For the holding bay to function effectively you have to prepare yourself by providing for standby cargo handling machine that will breakdown at anytime thus in every holding bay, there should be at least two machines for off -loading empty containers. In a situation where you have one of the machine working and the other is bad then there is a problem.
How effective are the machines in the various holding bays you mentioned?
At the moment I will say that some are working while some are not, but the staff of the particular company will never say that the machine is not working, it is when you visit the site that you will find out that some of the equipment are bad. For instance a staff can come here to say that all their equipment are working while only one out of two or three is working.
What is the position of your association toward the new Lagos state traffic law?
It is not applicable to RTEAN alone ,all the truckers are not happy about it and I believe that if the law is implemented it will affect everybody, so doing all the associations are not relenting in their effort to put pressure on the state government and I believe the port NPA, shipping companies and the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria are all doing something to make sure that the decision by the Lagos state government does not work, because it will amount to congestion, it will amount to a situation where truck will move into the port in the day time and move out at night which is not too good for the Nigeria economy.
What is your response to the present deliberations at the National Assembly on the movement trucks at night?
I do not believe that such deliberation will hold waters because even the Lagos state law on restriction of movement of trucks will not work because there is a lot of pressure from the federal government on the issue, but come what may I think if such issues come to the fore, then the national executive of our association will write a strong letter to the National Assembly to explain why it is not possible.
The porous nature of the port access roads, coupled with the day- to- day problem of containers falling off on the roads have been a major concern to the public, what is your response to that?
We are trying our best in that direction because it is part of what we discussed in the meeting with NPA which is the issue of the bad roads within the ports. We all know that all the roads are choked up and as it is we cannot do much than to continue mounting pressure on them. We gathered that they have awarded the contract and I know that one thing is to award contract and the other is to pay for the contract. How many hours or days will it take them to repair this Apapa Oshodi expressway? As it is, the contractor is just at a particular spot. At the Trinity end they are just there rotating which I must say is not right. A five kilometre road has been under repairs for two years now without positive result, I must say that something is wrong somewhere. So when you give a contract to a contractor and you cannot pay him, how do you expect such person to perform? What we have at the moment at that end of the road is purely skeletal as far as I am concerned.
Will be right to say that you are calling for public and private partnership to ensure speedy repairs of the roads?
I am not calling for that because if we are to call for that then it is us that will suffer thus we are going to pay because are vehicles are picking for road worthiness to government and it is the government duty to provide the basic amenities to it citizens and not we the citizens. For instance in Lekki where the citizens have to pay for three separate toll gates and the amount they are collecting at the moment is expensive talk less of trucks which is quite bigger compare to cars so I am not calling for that rather I am calling on the government to speed up repair works because of the importance of the roads to the economy.)
What then is your take on the issue of wharf landing fees?
Wharf landing fee has been in existence for a long time now and before the introduction of the landing fee we were not called upon to say one thing or the other, which was wrong, all we know was that they just came one morning and started collecting that fee but it might interest you to know that we are not the ones paying that money but I must say that we are not happy with that decision because whenever there is no work on ground, it is the owners that will pay for it. Ordinarily it is the agents that pay the money but whenever there is no work for them to do we are compelled to pay that fee which I must say we are not happy about, but it has become a Lagos law. Though there is nothing we can do because if we mount pressure on this issue, the Lagos state government will say since we are not the ones paying we should not involve ourselves in it, but the fact still remains that if there is no job and somebody want to employ you, they will insist that you are the ones that will pay, but ordinarily it is the clearing agent that is suppose to pay that fee.
Are you satisfied with the Lagos ports operations?
It is nothing to write home about because congestions at the port is much, there is no plan on how to access the roads within the ports and before the port what concessioned to the concessionaires there were some laws attached to it and that is the fact that every concessionaire is supposed to have a park where at least 50 to 100 trucks can find their ways within their areas of operation, but such facilities are not in existence and that is why you see everywhere within the port been choked up. In places like Ghana and Cotonou where they have beautiful transit park where they will come to know how many vehicles are out there at a particular point in time and such things have helped their ports to be free from congestions. In Ghana for example the port is located 15 kilometers away from where you have residential building, so they are capable of creating room for trucks to construct a beautiful, befitting truck terminals, even at the moment we are still in court, because NPA gave us this place we are at the moment, when we were driven away from the place we were before and after three months, we later occupied this swampy area.
For how long has this place been in existence?
Since 2001 or 2002, then 2010, federal ministry of works came and gave us quit notice, then we told them that they are not the one that gave us the place, why must they serve us quit notice because even though you are the owner of the place it is the NPA that gave us this place, they made publications, they used LASTMA to send away about 534 of our trucks, which made us take the matter to court and it is because we went to court that we are still here at this point in time.
Since you assumed office as the newly- elected chairman of [RTEAN], Tin Can Island chapter, what has been your challenge?
The challenges we met on ground before assumption of office as chairman remains the same challenges we are facing today, this has to do with harassment by law enforcement agencies about where to park our trucks .As it is we are trying to liaise with them because we do not stop them from doing their job rather they should do it with human face and that is what we are appealing to them for, because recently they came around to tow some of our trucks .
What is the association’s relationship with NPA and other agencies at the port?
The Nigeria Port Authority is a body we cannot do without as far as the port is concerned and I must say that we have a very good relationship with them, they are our landlord and like I said earlier we do meet from time to time to address issues bothering on the nation’s port. Our relationship with them is cordial and I must say that we cannot do without them. For the security agencies within port environment, I will say we are all living together in peace and harmony though transporters and the law enforcement agencies are like the pepper and the eye, but at the same time we cannot do without ourselves.
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