As the year 2022 takes off in full swing, a chieftain of the National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) Alhaji Abdullahi Inuwa Mohammed has called on the federal government to expedite action on the the reconstruction of the Mile 2 – Tincan Island Port road to ease the hardship encountered on the road by commuters and truckers alike on daily basis.
Mohammed who made this call in a chat with our correspondent in Lagos on Thursday noted that the completion of the reconstruction work on the road was one of the major expectations of the entire maritime stakeholders which was never met in the outgone year 2021adding that reconstruction work is long overdue for completion.
He observed that although reconstruction work had started again from Cele bus stop to Sunrise bus stop, the government and the contractor handling the job should pay more attention to see that the reconstruction work was completed.
“They have to pay attention to the completion of the reconstruction work and make sure that they create enabling environment for the exporters and also to make sure that the shipping lines do the needful by providing holding bays where trucks can freely go and discharge their empty containers.
“We urge the government to create an enabling environment, if those things are there and the enforcement team is doing what they should do with the Eto, things will get better. But we know now that we are having global challenge because about 65% of import has dropped but we know it’s a global challenge. There’s scarcity of containers globally.
While emphasizing that the federal government did a lot last year to encourage export trade, he, however, regretted that the call up the system put in place by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) which they thought could have been improved for the exporters, the farmers as well as miners to enjoy was lagging behind.
“If you recall, last year, so many exporters lost their investment because of poor handling and poor facility which resulted to the rejection of some of the items exported by the receiving countries which is not good for the country.
“So, we do expect that government should pay more attention to see that anything that will disturb the movement of export goods is being taken care of to create an enabling environment for exporters to export their goods”, he stated.
Mohammed, however, called on the federal government to de-emphasize tariff increments adding that it’s not by increasing tariffs, irresponsible revenue drive and creating hardship for the citizens that it would improve the state of the economy but by fixing charges that would be pocket friendly both to the importers and exporters so as to cushion the hardship on the citizens.
Photo: NARTO chieftain, Alhaji Abdullahi Inuwa Mohammed.
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