Growing concerns over Apapa road as OPS laments effect on trade

As far as the state of the Apapa road remains the way it is, with little or no effort at speedy rehabilitation, cries of manufacturers and importers will not be easily silenced.

Expressing its pain, the Organised Private Sector (OPS) has complained that the challenge is taking toll on trade facilitation, cost of cargo transportation and overhead cost of businesses in the country.

The Apapa road, which is at a dilapidated state, is on a 24-hour traffic gridlock, causing cargoes to spend more days either in transit or at the port.
A statement by the Director-General, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Segun Ajayi-Kadir on behalf of Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA), Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines & Agriculture (NACCIMA), National Association of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (NASME) and National Association of Small Scale Industries (NASSI) in Lagos yesterday, lamented that the traffic jam hampers access to the ports, paralyse economic activities, engender loss of man-hour and enormous wastage of fuel..

“Most worrisome is the that fact that this challenge is also leading to heavy revenue loss to government, too long turnaround time for delivery of cargoes, huge transportation cost, avoidable raw materials stock-out and the inability of companies to meet set production targets,” the statement read in part.

The group lamented that trucks hired to carry cargoes do not have easy access to the port to lift or deliver cargoes and those lifting cargoes cannot come out of the port because of the long hours of traffic. According to the statement, it now takes between five and eight weeks for the delivery of cargoes to be taken.

OPS said port users now pay between N350, 000 and N400, 000 as cargo transport cost as against the standard rate of N100, 000 per cargo, adding to operational cost.
The current business environment has the capacity to hinder profitability and erode the reasonable progress that government has made so far in improving the business-operating environment, OPS added.

The group argued that this may further worsen the rating of the country in the ease of building business index if not urgently addressed.
The MAN DG pointed said there is no reason why our ports being the gateway to international trade and flow of cargoes cannot have world class infrastructure, access roads and facilities in line with best practices evidenced by status of ports in China, Dubai, Germany, Malaysia, and Singapore.

He further called on the government to speed up actions that will proffer permanent solutions to this challenge by setting up a taskforce made up of representatives of all stakeholders to strategize on ways and means of resolving the challenge.
He also called for the creation of alternative route to ease the current pressure on all the stakeholders operating on the maritime value chain.‎

Joy Ekeke