President of the Shippers’ Association of Lagos State, Jonathen Nicol, has said that the
two weeks traffic gridlock which grounded business activities in the port city
cost the industry over N1.3 billion.
Speaking
with Vanguard in Lagos, Nicol said that all sectors of the industry were
affected aversely during the period of the traffic lock down.
The
Shippers’ Association boss explained that for the period, the Nigeria Customs Service,
Terminal Operators, Shipping Companies, Clearing agents, Shippers, truckers,
amongst others did next to nothing and that definitely affected their revenue.
According
to him, the traffic jammed “directly resulted in partial congestion and
once
there is congestion the volume of income will dwindle. We must have lost about
N1.3 billion during the period which is an enormous lose.”
On
the cause of the traffic gridlock, he said the bulk of the problem is human
related and that is why it took government just two days to temporarily solve
it. He blamed the presence of tank farms and the city that has developed to
meet the port as another reason for the traffic congestion.
Nicol
called on government to relocate the tank farms from their present location to
ease the traffic jam in the area. He further noted that apart from easing the
traffic congestion, the danger posed by these tank farms can only best be
imagined.
“The
tank farms should not even stay along a place where thousands, millions of
people converge for business. One would have thought by now that the tank farms
would have been removed or relocated to a place far away from human habitation,
maybe somewhere in Badagry or even Ondo state.”
“So
trucks can now evacuate petroleum products from the tank farms but as it is
now, it is compulsory that government should move them away.
Imagine
the bomb blast or maybe industrial explosion we had in Apapa recently, imagine
it was Petroleum Motor Spirit, PMS, it would have been disastrous because it
would have moved from one tank farm to the other.
I do
not think government would have had it ease to contain such inferno.”
Reminded
that tank farm operators have in the past called on residents Apapa to
relocate, Nicol said it is unfortunate that they are putting individual
consideration in a matter that affects thousands and millions of lives.
He
said if they can not relocate then they should stop the business. He stressed
that their position on the issue is because government is yet to make up its
mind about the relocation of these facilities, adding that when government
decides to relocate them, they will have no choice but to move, he stated.
Vanguard
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