By Steve Agbota
A Fact-Finding Committee constituted by the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has identified traffic, current exchange rate, extortion and high inflation as the extraneous factors responsible for high cost of doing business in the nation’s ports and other sectors.
Speaking at a recent town hall meeting for truckers, transporters, freight forwarders/licensed Customs agents, importers and exporters, other relevant stakeholders in Lagos State, the Chairman of the Committee, Dr Arthur Igwilo, said that it is no longer news that the cost of doing business in Nigeria is still high due to the current exchange rate and high inflation.
He added that there were other contributory factors that have led to the spike in the cost of doing business especially in Lagos.
“Traffic has been identified as one of the extraneous contributory factors. Others are hostilities due to extortion both by traffic managers and non-state actors (agberos), poor road infrastructure (our port access roads are due for expansion).
“Lately, we noticed proliferation more checkpoints targeted at trucks-carrying containers .But the profound incident that drew our attention is the scenario that played out during the last quarter of 2023,” he added.
He noted that the movement of trucks-in and out of the ports were literally halted, this happened especially in the month of December last year.
“As a result of the traffic cataclysm, higgledy-piggledy, operational melancholy and topsy-turvy, NAGAFF Headquarters created a Special Fact-Finding Committee, to move in and unravel the remote and root causes of the ugly scenario during which several billions of naira were lost by Federal Government, Lagos State Government, importers and exporters, truckers/transporters, freight forwarders/licensed Customs agents etc.
“So, in this new year, 2024,under the new leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, we desire to approach this hydra-headed traffic malaise differently, hence this Townhall meeting. The Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), has been on top of the situation to bring sanity to the port environment. They have been working assiduously to achieve improved port security in conjunction with the Nigerian Police.NPA has improved cleaner port environment,
“In 2021,NPA contracted TTP Nig Ltd to augment the traffic management strategies. During this period, the traffic management was partially automated through the introduction of Electronic Call-up System (E-Call-up), by TTP Nig Ltd.This they did in line with international best practices. But the human element, intermittently distort the seamless flow of the traffic in and out of the ports.We need more automation in that regard,” he explained.
However, he said the Freight Forwarding community need seamless traffic management system because if it is achieved, the logistics supply chain management plan will flow and all the stake holders and Nigeria at large would benefit immensely.