The Lagos State Police Commissioner, ?Fatai Owoseni has urged the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to suspend the issuance of licenses to fuel marketers for the construction of tank farms within the State, especially around the Apapa area.
Owoseni at an event in Lagos last week said it is worrisome to note that despite the congested nature of the state and the excesses of tanker drivers?, the DPR is still planning to issue fresh licenses to some marketers to construct tank farms.
Owoseni also took a swipe at port concessionaires at the Apapa and Tin Can Island Ports, describing them as incompetent because they lack capacity and enough cargo handling equipment.
He said that out of the 42 tank farms located in Apapa, only two of them have truck parks that are functional.? He also said that port terminal operators should be forced to build holding bays for their trucks.
The Police boss noted that the DPR that is responsible for giving licenses to tank farm owners have been failing in their responsibilities.
"Out of 42 tank farms that we have in Apapa, just one or two have holding bays that can be used, and they are still in the process of approving more which is not suppose to be so"
"The DPR should be able to live up to their responsibility and sanction tank farm owners who have not complied with the provision of holding bays; they should suspend the issuance to more tank farms"
Owoseni also indicted petroleum marketers, saying that most of them usually issue tickets to tanker drivers even when they do not have products for them to carry.
He said that the Lagos State Traffic laws issued by the Lagos State Government which seeks to restrict the movement of trucks from 6am to 9pm will not work.
According to him, Lagos State as a strategic state does not go to bed early, and at 12pm, some people may just be returning from work, while as early as 4am some are leaving for work.
"Marketers that have the tank farms, while some of them have not received the product they are expecting, if they have 100,000 litres in stuck, they will sell 400,000 litres and they would have issued tickets to the tankers that will start coming to the ports"
"This made the ports to be turned into garages and parks because the products are not there for them to take, because the marketers have sold beyond what they need to sell"
"Restricting the movement of trucks between 9pm and 6am is easy to make but that it is difficult to enforce. In Lagos, by 11pm people are still moving, so if you reduce the movement of trucks to 9pm it make an insignificant changes and by 4am people are already going to work" he said.
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