Truck owners at Nigerian Ports under the aegis of Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO) have threatened to withdraw their services from the port if the Tin Island Port and Apapa Port access roads are not repaired before 26th of August 2015.
In a telephone chat with Shipping Position Daily, Chairman of AMATO, Chief RemiOgungbemi lamented that the 2nd gate of the Tin Can Island Port is presently not accessible as trucks continue to fall off due to the deep gullies on the road.
Truck owners at Nigerian Ports under the aegis of Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO) have threatened to withdraw their services from the port if the Tin Island Port and Apapa Port access roads are not repaired before 26th of August 2015.
In a telephone chat with Shipping Position Daily, Chairman of AMATO, Chief RemiOgungbemi lamented that the 2nd gate of the Tin Can Island Port is presently not accessible as trucks continue to fall off due to the deep gullies on the road.
He explained that the decision to withdraw services from the port was reached by the truckers in order to draw government's attention to the suffering of road users.
He said that instead of the government to clamp down on the agencies that have failed in their responsibilities of maintaining the road, it was clamping down on trucks, a development which according to him, have left many of the truckers indebted.
He told one of our correspondents that :"As from 26th of august 2015, we’ll withdraw our trucks from roads in protest against the deplorable condition of Tincan and Apapa roads, if the roads are not repaired on or before then, we will stop all operations"
"We are withdrawing our services, we would ask our drivers to go and park the trucks, the trucks are falling everyday, the losses are unquantifiable and we cannot just continue like that, the roads damage our trucks a lot, even if you have a standard truck, we don't want to wait until the road start claiming lives".
Ogungbemi berated various government agencies in charge of the roads at state, local level and Federal levels for what he described as their high level of incompetence, saying that they are supposed to carry out frequent maintenance of the roads but they failed.
"All these government agencies, what are they doing? Is it because government is not penalizing them, they were set up to ensure that the roads are passable and maintained, but they are doing nothing"
"Going by the rate at which containers are falling, any responsible government is expected to do something about it, no measure is too much to safeguard lifes and properties", he stated.
Ogungbemi concurred however that, it is a welcome development that the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) has decided to clamp down on trucks that are not properly latched, saying that this will enable his members to wake up and maintain their trucks as required by the authorities.
"We want them to put some things in place, there is nothing stopping the Lagos government from putting some granite and cement as a palliative measure on that road, we are not expecting them to do it overnight, but between now and Monday we want to see that they have started doing something" the AMATO Chairman said.
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