Vincent Toritseju
Lagos — Following the introduction of the Electronic Call up system for trucks entering the ports has stopped the extortion of over N100million on a daily basis from truck drivers, the Chief Operating Officer of the Transit Truck Park Limited, Mr. Dayo Adeboye has said.
Speaking to Sweetcrudereports in Lagos, Adeboye the initiative of the Electronic call up system said was meant to eradicate the issue of extortion and reduce cost of cargo delivery.
Adeboye explained that the Electronic call up project is in three phase, namely physical infrastructure, stakeholders’ management and collaboration and deployment of technology
He said: “The project was designed to deal with extortion. The project is in three phases, and it is mainly to tackle extortion. One is development of physical infrastructure, stakeholders’ management and collaboration and deployment of technology. The only reason extortion takes place is because trucks park on the road and they pay security agents to allow them park on the road and from there, they hustle their way into the ports.
“So everybody is using different means to access the ports and that is what is causing the congestion, what the project is trying to do is gate all the trucks and then schedule them into according to what stakeholders in the port can use every hour. When this is done, all the roads will be free of traffic and even on the common user roads within the ports.
“With the E-call up system, immediately your ticket is printed, that means you have a parking lot in an holding bay. So you are moving from point to point, you are not on the road, so why would anybody ask you for money. That is how we planned to stop the extortion and Lagos State is suppose to bring enforcement, no parking, no stopping, no truck is allowed to stop on the road you have to enter one of the holding bays. Lagos State is also helping us to sensitize security agents to stop the extortion. Lagos has a special task force implementing this project.”
Speaking on the development, President of the Association of Maritime Trucks Owners, AMATO, Mr. Remi Ogungbemi also confirmed the development and called on the operators of the truck park to more security conscious of the system.
Ogungbemi however commended the introduction of the Electronic call system adding the system is better that what was obtainable before now.
He explained that the introduction of the Electronic call system has reduced the extortion, fighting and other vices that were associated with unregulated system of allowing trucks in to the ports.
He said: “Yes I heard about it, there are ways to checkmating the forgery, they should put more efforts, they should put more security features that will make in impossible for them forge.
“In every situation, there must be a way out, no system is perfect, the implementation has started and I am also commending the efforts and I appreciate it no matter the challenges they are facing now.
“I want to let you know that that no matter the challenges we are facing right now, no matter how bad the system is now, what we are passing through presently is far better than where we are coming from because the rate of extortion, exploitation, intimidation, death, fatigue and stress has reduced drastically.
“And the amount being expended to pass the trucks has also reduced drastically but my only concern is that the operator should be careful not to allow sycophants to hijack the system from them