The National Association of Road Transportation Owners (NARTO) has confirmed that the truckers have slightly adjusted upward the freight rate to reflect the current realities in the trucking business.
This is even as the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has directed all the trucking associations operating in the nation’s maritime industry to submit what they felt should be the standard rate for transporting cargoes from the ports so that there be a uniform rate.
Speaking in a chat with our correspondent in Lagos, the Lagos State Vice Chairman of NARTO, Dry Cargo, Alhaji Abdullahi Inuwa Mohammed observed that the a lot of factors were responsible for the hike among them are poor state of the roads, high costs of spare parts and extortions by the security agencies.
According to him,”Somebody may tell you that I have collected N200,000, he may know the amount you collected but he may not know how the money is spent. Let me tell you where the money is going. First, transportation is all about turn over, a place that if you are running local, you run between 4 and 5 trips , you now end up running only once in a week. You can see, we the truck owners have become ATM for different security agencies.
“A journey that will take you 1 or 2 hours, you end up spending about 48 hours to pass there, that is going, then coming back again, the same thing. At the end, the cost of spare parts, you know what it is. The diesel consumption, if before you are taking 50 litres, now because of the condition of the roads, you have to give the drive money for 150 Litres so as to be in a safe side.
“Those that are enjoyed this thing are no other people than the terminal operators and the shipping companies. They are enjoying it in the sense that so many People’s loads are trapped, they cannot be able to bring them out and demurrage is accruing. Because of the failure of the shipping companies to provide holding bay for their empty containers, if you cannot return it within the stipulated period, they charge you demurrage because they have manipulated their way as they want to cut down cost of procuring handling equipment, holding bay charges and the cost of transporting the empty containers to the ports for export. So, these people and the security agencies are the ones benefiting.
“There is an actual increment in the freight rate but those are where the monies are going”.
He further added that a journey of 300 kilometers now take about 550 kilometers since the driver in a bid to avoid a long queue on a failed portion of road or to avoid a road that is totally in bad shape may take alternative route which is farther and consume more diesel saying that if he insists on plying the 300 kilometer road, he may end up spending more number of days on the road.
“There are situations where we have the bridge collapsed, some of our trucks were there in a queue for almost a month and in some cases 20 days. For you to avoid that, you have to go round so as to boycott all these places leading to consumption of diesel, the wear and tear of trucks and others”, he added.
On the margin of increment, the NARTO chieftain disclosed that the hike was between N30,000 and N40,000 depending on the distance and the urgency need of the owner of the consignment.
On the viability of implementing the freight rate they initially submitted to the NSC if approved, Mohammed retorted,”Even with what we have forwarded, it cannot work because the damage on the road was not as much as it is now. Except they provide a conducive environment for us to work, that is when that one can be tenable but where there is no conducive environment, then there is nothing we can do”.
Send your news, press releases/articles to augustinenwadinamuo@yahoo.com. Also, follow us on Twitter @reportersinfo and on Facebook on facebook.com/primetimereporters or call the editor on 07030661526, 08053908817.
