Deployment of Eto has reduced cargo haulage cost, extortion in Apapa

By Steve Agbota                                    

Trucks Transit Parks (TTP), the firm handling the seaport electronic call-up system for the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) said the introduction of the Eto has led to a reduction in cargo haulage cost, extortion and orderliness around Apapa in the last one year.

Speaking during a media briefing to mark one year anniversary of the E-call-up system at the Lagos ports, Managing Director of the TTP, Mr. Jama Onwubuariri, said with Eto introduction, economic and recreational activities have slowly returned to Apapa.

However, the company accused truckers association demanding for the unbundling of the E-call-up system because of its refusal to grant them five per cent share from the system.

According to Onwubuariri, some truckers association have been demanding for the unbundling of the Eto E-call-up system because the company refused to grant their request to collect five per cent share from every revenue collected on the E-call-up system.

“We are not averse to solutions that can help ease traffic along the ports access roads. The challenge, however, is that most of the unions that has come to us to introduce a competitor app, have done that because of selfish interest, not because they want to solve the traffic problem

“One of such unions came to us, asking for a five percent share in revenue that we collect on the E-call-up system. The union said the five per cent will be a charge that they will be collecting for collaborating with us. We rejected such arrangement because that will mean what truckers will be paying for will be increased by five per cent. “So because of this situation, some truckers started calling for the unbundling of the Eto call-up system. They are however in the minority and don’t enjoy the support of other  truckers union,” he said.

On partnership with seaport terminal operators, the TTP MD said the company recently implemented a terminal request procedure to know the number of containers that is expected at each port terminals on a daily basis.

“We recently implemented a terminal request procedure that ensures that the port terminals provides us electronically with the number of containers, both export and empties, that they are expecting at their terminals from the shipping lines.

“NPA traffic managers are expected to update the Eto app with that information and that will be the basis for releasing trucks from the various pre-gate to the ports.

“By following this process, we can match what the port terminals are expecting and what they can process with the number of trucks that are sent to the streets,” Mr. Onwubuariri stated.