The Chief Operating Officer of the Truck Transit Park (TTP); Mr Temidayo Adeboye, has explained why it has been difficult for the electronic call-up system to come alive at the Tin Can Port, six months after the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) commenced the use of an electronic call-up system at the ports in Lagos.
Recall that NPA had on February 27, announced the commencement of the use of an electronic call-up system at the Apapa and Tin Can Island ports. However, six months down the line, the Tin Can Island Port has failed to commence the use of the e- call up system.
In a telephone chat with our correspondent, the Chief Operating Officer of the TTP; handlers of the electronic call-up system, blamed the current road construction ongoing at the Tin Can Port, for the reason the e-call up system has failed to work.
He explained that truck drivers find it difficult to access the port owing to the road construction, while also further stating that the design of the Tin Can Port also makes the e-call up a herculean task to accomplish.
He said, the Tin Can port has only three access gate, unlike the Apapa Port that has over eight entry points, while also blaming extortion and human interference in the corridor as one of the factors that have added to the woes in ensuring the e-call up system works.
According to him, “yes the e-call up has not worked because of the road construction ongoing in that area, because of that people find it difficult to access the port, secondly if you look at Tin Can, you will discover that Tin Can has only three access unlike Apapa that has about eight to nine entry points.
“And these three accesses to the port are designed for different purposes, the gate one and two are for people to take the first and second entrance, while the third entrance is for trucks so this has made it difficult and because of that, technology can’t work.
“So When technology fails, you change to manual system, as soon as you switch to a manual system, you have increased the chances of human interference and for people to circumspect the system, what they do is for you to stop the system from working, because of the free gates and no redundancy on the gates.
“When a gate fails because the gates are designed for various roads of traffic, you can not immediately channel traffic to another road traffic entry point, so you have to switch to a manual system, so when they recognise that you change to a manual system, it has a lot to do with human interference, then you can bribe security agents and force your way in”.
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Explaining further, he said, “so the port took a deliberate decision to create redundancies on all gates, very soon in the next week or two, we should have triple redundancies on each gates, so if one fails, we change to another redundancy, by doing so there will be absolutely no human interference and as soon as the road construction is completed, the e-call up system will start again”.
Also speaking recently with our correspondent, the acting Managing Director of NPA, Mohammed Bello- Koko blamed the road construction going on in the Tin Can port axis as the major reason the e-call system has failed at Tin Can port, but assured that it will get better in few weeks to come.
“The problem in Tin Can is the road, and we have to work with the Federal Ministry of Works and we pleaded and they have asked Hi-Tech to deploy, and they have started working on the bad spot, the extremely bad spot with palliatives, the Sunrise bus stop, Mr Biggs and so on and so forth and that has actually assisted in improving traffic, formerly all trucks going to Tin Can, still go to Apapa, and that’s why you see the traffic, but things have improved and there is now cooperation because of regular engagement and I believe it will get better in few weeks to come” he said.
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