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Steve Agbota
The frustrating gridlock on roads to the Tin Can Island and Apapa ports in Lagos, two of the nation’s premier seaports, appears to be getting progressively worse by the day, taking a huge toll on businesses along that corridor.
Despite a recent 72 -hour presidential directive to clear the mess, commercial bank branches in the Apapa business district are lamenting the gridlock, has already shrunk their transactions by over 40 per cent. Bank managers who spoke to Daily Sun on the state of their operations in the area, attrbuted the huge drop in the volume of transactions to the relocation of about 90 per cent of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) from the port city.
According to them, the only business left for them in Apapa at present are those coming from a few corporates like Dangote, Flour Mills, BUA, government agencies and other few big individuals.
A bank official who spoke with Daily Sun on condition of anonymity lamented the loss of huge businesses done with the SMEs who accounted for the bulk of their income lines prior to the traffic menace.
According to him majority of the SMEs relocated due to the deplorable state of access roads to the nation’s premier seaports in Apapa, stressing it has become a pain in the neck for port users, residents, business community and stakeholders in the maritime sector. The source added that the incessant gridlock remains a setback to businesses, especially the SMEs, having defied all efforts to remedy it.
The bank official said: “Apart from the big accounts we manage for the likes of Dangote and the rest, we are indebted to our SMEs customers because we know the value they add to our revenue. We are an SMEs-driven bank and we encourage them and support them to thrive.
“Today, almost our SMEs account owners have either relocated or have closed shop. No one is coming for overdraft, and other short term lending that boosted our income lines in the past.This is telling on us to the extent many of us may be forced to also close our operations if nothing is done urgently to clean the mess. We do busines with big corporates like Dangote and the but how far can we go without the SMEs who are more in number.’
Several years ago, our banking hall used to be filled to the extent that we would be struggling to serve them, but not anymore as we have lost most of them due to Apapa gridlock. So, the gridlock is reallykilling our operations generally in Apapa. We hope things will change when government eventually fixes the roads and solves other problems affecting businesses in the ports.”
Another worrisome indicator to the loss of 90 per cent SME businesses to the gridlock according to a bank manager is the low estate occupancy rate in Apapa.
The source said “If you look around this place, you will see so many empty buildings. Those were buildings housing many SMEs owners. The impact of the gridlock on most SMEs is serious. When you see most of the offices, hardly will you see their bosses there. Theywill just come once in a while or maybe once in two weeks.
On a normal day, if they come around to help take some decisions, which the staff won’t be able to take, they usually leave immediately. So it is negatively effecting their businesses too.”
However, Chukwuemeka Ikenna, who runs a computer business centre told Daily Sun that presently it takes the grace of God to survive in Apapa because businesses are no longer what they used to be.
He said despite the huge revenue generated from the ports daily, successive administrations have failed to muster the political will to fix the roads and provide power for businesses around the ports, describing it as the major setback for small business owners.
