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By Steve Agbota, Lagos
The Port Standing Task Team has said that it arrested 170 trucks in the past five months for various offences along Nigeria’s port corridors.
The offences range from lack of documentation, blocking of common user access at the port to roadworthiness, among others.
Disturbed by the continuous traffic gridlock on the port access roads, the federal government had in April 2022 inaugurated “Operation Free The Ports Corridor” to ensure easy movement in and out of the seaports.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Transportation, Mrs Magdalene Ajani, who flagged off the initiative championed by the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) in Lagos, had sought the support of all industry stakeholders to ensure the efforts yield positive results.
Speaking to reporters recently, the National Coordinator of PSTT, Moses Fadipe, said that 90 per cent of the trucks so far arrested were not road worthy.
He said the operation of the PSTT is carried out without fear or favour of any government agencies or apparatus, adding that the Task Team has had cause to arrest trucks belonging to the military, and released them after they have gone through the same punishment process as others.
“170 trucks were arrested within a spate of five months and all went through this process. Meanwhile, all the trucks operating in the logistics chain of Apapa are about 2,500 daily, including the petroleum tankers.
“90 per cent of the trucks arrested were not road worthy. However, that is not the primary offence for which they were apprehended. Their roadworthiness and other documents must be validated, or else they are not released by the PSTT. However, the team is not in charge of the validation of the papers but the concerned agencies like the FRSC
“Most of the trucks were arrested for causing obstruction on the common user facilities at the port.
Even the military trucks arrested also go through the same process,” he said.
According to him, if the PSTT has more capacity, it would be able to extend its operations towards mile 2 and beyond, saying that there is a need for human capacity, logistics and funding.
Presently, the Nigerian Shippers Council is the only agency funding operations of the PSTT. While highlighting some of the punitive measures put in place to ensure the success of Operation Free Port Corridor, he said: “When your truck is apprehended for obstruction, the first approach is to direct the driver to move away. However, most of the trucks park on the access road without the drivers inside. When this is the case, the PSTT would tow the truck.
“The next thing is to take you to a truck park closer to where you are arrested, we use different truck parks which COMTUA refers to as a third-party facility. The truck park would never release you until the PSTT okay it,” he added.
