Apapa Gridlock eases 2 days after FG’s order

The Apapa Gridlock caused has according to reports eased in just 2days after the Presidential order for articulated vehicles to vacate the Apapa Wharf access roads.

According to reports coming from the area, there have been improved traffic on the Apapa Port access roads since they began clearing the road of the articulated vehicles.

Mr Sam Adeyemo, a Chieftain of the National Association of Road Transport Owners, Dry Cargo Sector, said that traffic improvement would be temporary because, without the provision of truck bays, the traffic crisis might not end, Pulse NG reports.

Adeyemo, who had been in the trucking business for two decades, said the problem was an artificial creation of the shipping companies.

“The shipping companies are the ones benefiting from the situation by ensuring that the appropriate money is deposited by importers with them through demurrage.

“Every importer deposits huge sum of money as a surety for containers. Such money is to be paid back to the importer if he does not delay in returning the empty container to the shipping company.

“With this traffic situation, every importer forfeits that deposit to the shipping companies; hence the shipping companies do not want to comply with the provision of truck holding bays.

“It should not be a must for me to carry the container back to the port. What happens to the bonded terminals outside ports?

“Empty containers can be taken to such facilities (bonded terminals); for the shipping companies to go there and pick the containers when they wish,” he said.