Nigeria should engage private sector willing to invest, create lorry parks – NAGAFF
By Moses Uwagbale
Dr Segun Musa, Deputy National President, Air Logistics, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has urged the Federal Government to engage private sector willing to invest and create lorry parks.
Musa made the appeal in Lagos on Wednesday that due to lack of parks and the lingering of trucks on the port corridor, it lead to extortion of truckers and thus increased the cost of haulage.
Musa noted that these men disguised as task force are taking in over N300 million every week, adding that this was fraud, and urging government to look into this.
According to him, creating the truck parks will help checkmate the gridlock being faced on the ports corridor which most times is caused by some so called ‘task force’.
“A lot of evil is being perpetuated on a daily basis at the port corridor and nothing is being done about it.
“There is need to remove these boys as they are the ones causing the gridlock within that corridor and this makes people who are doing business to lose because they cannot gain access to the port.
“This is highly unprofessional and unethical and all these maritime government agencies, Nigerian Ports Authority, Nigerian Shippers’ Council know all about this and they are not doing anything about it.
“This has become a shameful thing and so we want government to engage the private sector that are willing to create lorry park to help fight this menace,” he said.
He said that they are proposing government to automate systems at the port as automation would immediately ensure that when terminals receive the customs release, they would send the Trade Delivery Order Code (TDOC) to agents for pickup.
He said that the time for the agent to take their haulage to pick shipment would be on the code and that was how a call-up operates.
“I want to believe that government will stand on the promise of the automating the port, not just automating customs processes, the whole system should be automated.
“Freight forwarders do not need to come to the port when they want to clear cargo, clearance should be done within the comfort zone of the freight forwarder, they should be able to capture their data from their office or homes and should be able to make payment online and getting shipping release without going to the port.
“The one reason one can visit the port is if they notice any discrepancy and for one to go for physical examination, also, even for shipping companies, government shoud mandate them to be online, so that it will be a seamless operation in 2021,” he said.
Musa noted that this year had been a sad story as activities at the port was getting worse and creating a lot of bottleneck for trade facilitation adding that if government fulfill its promise of port automation, most of the bottleneck would be reduced.