Apapa gridlock: FG to sanction tank farms without holding bays

THE Federal Government is set to sanction tank farm owners without holding bays for their trucks, as part of efforts to clear port access roads off traffic gridlocks.

Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala Usman, made this known  recently while responding to issues of lack of holding bays raised by transport unions.

Usman said that government would support the private sector to drive the initiative to set up new ones, explaining that the agency has received proposals on electronic management of holding bays.

“We have received proposals on electronic management of holding bays, we are working through processes and we would soon conclude on that,” she said.

She said tank farms that do not have holding bays for their trucks would soon be sanctioned.

Usman said that the NPA was also working on providing weigh bridges within the ports and will in a few months’ time extant rules to take care of the problem of high axle load on the roads.

Meanwhile, shippers have given the Federal Government conditions to return to the nations seaports, calling on the Federal Government to provide incentives that will lure the shippers back to Nigerian ports.

Among some of the demands of the shippers include reducing the number of agencies operating in the ports to avoid ambiguous cargo clearing process as well as addressing the issue of bad roads leading to the port.

Others are; giving special status to the shippers in the port because of their decades of contributions to the economic growth of the country.

The president of Shippers Association Lagos State (SALS), Rev. Jonathan Nicol noted that the shippers who have been contributing to the economic development of the country for the past four decades deserve a special recognition and incentives as stakeholders in the port.

Asked to give details of the incentives, Nicol said that the government should compel shipping companies to give importers minimum of 41 days grace to clear their consignments before slamming them with demurrage charges.

He added that terminal operators should collect their charges in local currency instead of in dollars as well as stop all the extortions by different uniformed security agents in the port.