Oyetola sets up committee to review E-call up system to reduce Apapa gridlock

NPA regulates e-call-ups deployed for Apapa, Tin-Can Ports-TTP

By Temitope Adebayo

The Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, has constituted a committee to review the E-call up system in his commitment to reduce Apapa gridlock and strengthen effective movement of trucks and other articulated vehicles.

This is even as the Truck Transit Parks Ltd (TTP), has said the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) monitors and regulates the electronic call-up system deployed for Apapa and Tin-Can Ports.

The Committee has been mandated to come up with measures capable of ensuring that the current abuse of the system becomes a thing of the past.

This was contained in a statement issued by the minister’s spokesman, Ismail Omipidan, on Wednesday in Abuja.

The committee is to review the Standard Operating Procedures for Truck Traffic Management along the Lagos port corridor.

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Omipidan, who noted that the committee was expected to meet with other critical stakeholders in Lagos on Thursday for the review, quoted Oyetola as saying that “every possible abuse of the system by humans should be x-rayed and solutions provided with a view to ensuring that it is abuse-free.”

Although the E-call up system was introduced by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), in February 2021 for trucks at the Lagos ports, which truckers are expected to use to book turns to enter the ports, recent reports have suggested potential compromises in the functionality of this system.

“I have a number of suggestions on how I believe the system can be strengthened. But I want inputs from the stakeholders. This is why I have set up this committee to interface with the service provider and other stakeholders in the industry to come up with a best way of dealing decisively with the saboteurs,” the minister said.

Meanwhile, the TTP, which owns and manages an electronic call-up system for batching port-bound trucks known as Eto, faulted the claim in some sessions of the media that it gives NPA 10 percent of monthly returns.

Nancy Nnamdi, corporate communications manager of TTP, said the company has consistently contributed to operational efficiency at the ports and collaborated with the NPA in the development, review, and update of standard operating procedures that have improved the process and turnaround time for cargo evacuation.

“The SOP has also improved truck routing and mapping of truck parks to destinations/terminals in the port. Over the past 34 months, Ètò has processed about 1.7 million truck entry/exits of port and non-port-bound trucks, significantly reducing traffic gridlock challenges along the Apapa and Tin-Can Port corridor,” Nnamdi said.

She said the recent challenges causing gridlock along the port access roads are attributed to the transferring and interchanging of tickets and truck profiles among truckers, truck diversion along the port corridor in search for a second-leg job, and trucks cris-crossing between terminals within the ports.

She also blamed the inefficiency of terminals and a low number of trucks admitted and serviced daily, as well as park operators colluding with truckers to enter pregate trucks by proxy.

On the claim that truck booking was suspended for one month, she said, the booking of trucks to parks was temporarily put on hold for about seven days, as directed by the NPA, to facilitate the rapid decongestion of trucks causing gridlocks along the port corridor and efficiently release and decongest the trucks waiting in the parks and pregates to access the ports.

This decision was communicated to relevant stakeholders, including truck drivers and transporters, she said.

She implored truckers to exercise patience as TTP and NPA work to address the above-listed challenges promptly.

“The Eto app is functioning as designed, and the measures in place aim to ensure sanity and ease of movement within the port premises,” she added.