The workers of the Nigerian Railway Corporation have tasked the federal government on the imperatives of container safety across the intermodal transport chain in Nigeria.
In his address to commemorate the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) Container Safety Action Day recently at the headquarters of Nigerian Railway Corporation, the President General of the Nigeria Union of Railway Workers (NUR), Comrade Raphael Okoro expressed concern about the safety of workers and other people that come in contact with containers through intermodal transport chain.
The workers of the Nigerian Railway Corporation have tasked the federal government on the imperatives of container safety across the intermodal transport chain in Nigeria.
In his address to commemorate the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) Container Safety Action Day recently at the headquarters of Nigerian Railway Corporation, the President General of the Nigeria Union of Railway Workers (NUR), Comrade Raphael Okoro expressed concern about the safety of workers and other people that come in contact with containers through intermodal transport chain.
To check the danger inherent in poorly regulated and improper handling of containers, Okoro gave a four-point advice to the Federal Government to ‘open discussions in the National Assembly to confirm its support for the ITF position on container safety; endorse and take practical steps to implement the global recommendations by the International Labour Organization ( ILO), International Maritime Organization (IMO), and United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) on container safety; adopt the provisions of the ILO/IMO/UNECE Code of Practice on Packing of Cargo Transport Units into national legislation; and adopt national ‘chain of responsibility’ regulations which extend the general responsibility and legal liability to ensure that the container is safe along the transport chain which includes the consignors, packers, loaders and most importantly the clients, rather than pursuing the truck or the loco drivers and operators’.
Okoro said it has become very necessary for Nigeria as a signatory to the conventions of International Labour Organization to adopt the regulations of relevant international regulatory bodies so as to improve safety standards around container packing and transportation in Nigeria.“As a Union, our major concern is the huge potential risk faced by the workers and members of the public who come in contact with the containers along their movement from one destination to another. Incorrect packing of dangerous goods has the potential to cause leakages, fires and explosions. In this case, the drivers of the conveyors of the containers and other road users are at great risk due to overloaded containers or shifting cargo as a result of unstable loads, causing the vehicles to end in disaster. A container filled with scrap material, for instance, can present a serious danger to those required to inspect or unload it”, Okoro has said.
“In Nigeria and just as it happens around the world, we have had instances where the actual weight of the container exceeds the safe working load. This can damage cranes mid-air leaving the container to crash down on workers. Similarly, poor load distribution in a container or overweight can cause derailment to the train while false declaration of weight and contents of a container can bring about uneven loading which certainly will have adverse impact on the vehicle carrying the container. In fact, there are occasions where road trucks and trailers carrying containers have deposited their containers on other vehicles killing many lives and destroying properties”, Okoro added.
Okoro expressed his displeasure on the lack of regulations on the safe transportation of containers which made trailer and locomotive drivers to be unaware of the content or weight of the containers carried. He said drivers had no way of making sure that the cargo was correctly packed and leaving the drivers with no information needed to reduce the risk of injury, explosion or other hazards in any event of accidents. Okoro opined that the drivers and those within immediate space of the accident suffer greatly more often.
“This is why we are of the view that all those involved in the transport and handling of containers along the supply chain need to be fully informed of the contents, actual weight, state of packing, stowage, lashing and securing of cargo including the eccentricity of the centre of gravity of the loaded container so that legal liability and general responsibility that ensures safe passage of containers can be encouraged and extended to include all those along the supply chain”, Okoro said.
It would be recalled that the first container was invented in 1957 by Malcom P. McLean to achieve more convenient intermodal transportation of goods in containers without the contents being unloaded or repacked. The invention has replaced previous methods of transporting goods in barrels, sacks, and wooden crates and has achieved seamless movement of goods in containers between ships, trucks, and trains. With about 35 million containers with standardized twist-lock mechanism in the world and steady growth in number of same, freighting and packing have posed great risk and danger.
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