Stakeholders stalling Apapa congestion clearing, says Opeifa

Team Leader on the Presidential Committee on Clearing of Apapa Port and Access Roads, Kayode Opeifa, has accused manufacturers, shippers and freight forwarders of not showing enough interest in port activities.

Opeifa challenged stakeholders at the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network webinar which held Thursday to clear movers away from the ports.

He said, “The movers are people who have no business in the ports. They are like agents. They come in and interface with everybody. All they do is to influence the cost of doing business.

“We also need to remove people who claim to be stakeholders but have no shipments at the ports. They are similar to movers; they could be movers or agents. They are everywhere. We are shocked that stakeholders are not showing  interests at the port.”

Opeifa said that some stakeholders were working against the progress of the ports as they went behind to circumvent good reforms made by the taskforce.

He said, “What we have found is that some of the stakeholders do not want a change at the ports. There are less than one per cent who just don’t want change at the port. As such when there is a reform going on, they go through the backyard to circumvent the process.

“One of them is the issue of call-up. There is no reason why we should be using manual call-up to call trucks into our ports.

“To make the electronic call-up easy, NPA has provided Lilypond terminal and the Tincan port transit terminal. If the transit truck terminal operates the right way, trucks will be called electronically and that would reduce human interference.”