COMTUA president, Adeyinka Aroyewun.
Story by Dili Utomi.
The Council of Maritime Transport Unions and Associations (COMTUA) has joined others in congratulating the partnership of the NPA and TTP on their one year anniversary into their joint operations.
A message signed by the President of the association said that “It should be acknowledged that in addition to the cargo handling (in and out of the ports) which is the statutory responsibility of the NPA, they took up the responsibility of providing an electronic means of getting into the ports. The idea is noble and deserves commendation”.
The responsibility of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) is primarily to ensure the delivery of cargoes in and out of the ports, the free movement of trucks is not a primary responsibility of the NPA, but the traffic situation really did have an adverse affect on their operations, hence their involvement in the traffic control operation. Recognising this, the COMTUA says that the NPA taking up such bold step is highly appreciated.
The Association however added that “Truckers have now seen reasons to take our destiny in our hands. We have chosen a similar path that is devoid of favouritism”. This means that they are at the verge of developing their own electronic call up system application that is deemed more efficient and less costly for everyone to use.
The message added that “We have requested a product that seek to provide our members with TDOs and jobs, just as TTP is now thinking in our direction by introducing a similar product one year after.
The quantity and quality of personnel deployed into the policy and enforcement at the instance of the current regime is our concern. It negates the principle of removing human interference in the process”.
The COMTUA states that “We have no regrets doing business with the NPA, but rather that there is need for an alternative and this is desirable especially in the cost of eto and movement into the ports”.
While recognising the imperfections of the ETO application, the Association also says that the sanity recorded in Apapa is a credit that should be given to all the partners in the road construction and the government on traffic control. They reiterated that the responsibility given to TTP is in the areas of accessing the ports and only on this can their score card be appraised.
The COMTUA also tried to debunk the claim that truckers demand for eto to be unbundled because of a requested 5% of all the proceeds from the ETO and described it as a ‘subterfuge’ and that what we have is more of the failure in delivery”. COMTUA added that “Monopoly has never yielded good fruits anywhere, if we preach against monopoly and poor service delivery and you think we are selfish, selflessness is not guaranteed under monopoly either, the message concluded.
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