LAGOS PORTS ACCESS ROADS
AMATO blames ‘bad roads’ over failure of exodus to Int’l Trade Fair Complex
The Chairman, Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), Chief Remi Ogungbemi, has said that, owing to certain challenges, his members have not been able to give effect to the planned relocation of their trucks from the Lagos ports access roads to the evolving truck terminal in the neighbourhood of the Lagos International Trade Fair Complex, along Badagry Expressway, Ojo , Lagos.
“Our members have not been able to relocate, partly due to the bad state of the roads,” Ogungbemi said, to explain why the truck owners have not remove their vehicles from the ports access roads, over a week after the Aug. 21, 2013, deadline given them by the Transport Minister, Senator Idris Umar, for relocation.
AMATO, it would be recalled, had expressed its willingness to support strategies proposed by the Federal Government to decongest the ports’ access roads.
Accessibility to the port areas is one of the critical issues in the implementation of the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code.
In a related development, a port worker in Lagos, Mr Kingsley Ajah, has expressed concern over the persistent gridlock on access roads to the Lagos ports.
Ajah posited that vehicular congestion in the ports’ environment constituted challenges to economic growth.
“With the roads remaining heavily congested, economic activities will continue to suffer. Imagine the number of man-hours wasted on these roads,” he said, urging government to rehabilitate the roads to alleviate the suffering of port users.
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