NPA, FRSC seal deal on full scale implementation of trucks safety checks at ports
Effective March 1, the approved deadline for trucks at Seaports to comply with latest trucking safety standards, the Federal Road Safety Commission ( FRSC) will commence enforcement of Minimum Standard of Safety and Road Worthiness ( MSSRW) for all the trucks entering the nation’s six major ports.
The seaports are located in Tincan, Apapa, Warri, Port Harcourt, Onne and Calabar.
Explaining the development during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding ( MoU) with the FRSC in Lagos, managing director of NPA, Hadiza Usman said the NPA has the responsibility to protect lives and properties of all stakeholders by ensuring that all articulated vehicles and trucks which on daily basis freight containers and assorted bulk cargoes to different parts of the country from the ports meet the required minimum safety standards.
She noted that NPA is working with the FRSC with the aim of sanitizing the haulage sub sector and cleaning up already notorious highways known for blockages by trucks especially the Apapa end of the Oshodi-Apapa expressway whose gridlock had no equal in Nigeria.
In a statement issued by NPA’s General Manager (Public Affairs), she said as part of moves to deepen compliance, FRSC and other safety enforcement agencies will collaborate to maintain safety standard for trucks accessing the ports by adopting the Road Traffic Safety Standarisation Scheme ( RTSSS). This according to her, will be juxtaposed with periodic safety checks and regular inspection and certification of the NPA’ fleet.
Usman made it further clear that currently “Apapa for example, is home to Nigerian‘s two foremost ports which are being managed by nine terminal operators. Between the two ports, more than 65 per cent of dry cargoes and about 90 per cent of the nation’s liquid (petroleum products) are handled”.
“This is because it hosts about 35 tank farms in addition to the numerous other businesses that are located in this port city.
“Going by the operational activities highlighted above, there is always heavy vehicular traffic around all port locations and most of these vehicles are not in good state.
“This debilitating vehicular traffic has assumed a frightening dimension in so many port areas. It has led to serious accidents that have claimed innocent lives and several man hours’ lost in traffic jam. Miscreants in arm robbery and other social vices have been on increase because of the perennial traffic situation in those areas.
Responding, the Corps Marshal of the FRSC, Boboye Oyeyemi said his agency was happy on the initiative of the new management of the NPA which has not happened before.
While advising truckers operating within and around the ports on the need to strictly adhere to the minimum safety standards in order to ensure safety of haulage operations, Oyeyemi assured that FRSC will enforce all the aspects of the MoU to the letter.
Apart from monitoring and enforcement, FRSC boss harped on adequate and appropriate driver education and speed limiter, saying both activities are vital and would therefore, be adopted by his men.
