NARTO Rejects Plan to Integrate Tanker Trucks into ECS

The National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) has faulted plans by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Trucks Transit Parks Limited (TTP) to integrate petroleum tankers in the electronic call-up system in a bid to decongest access roads to the Ports.

The National President, NARTO, Yusuf Othman who spoke to newsmen recently in Lagos, said NARTO members would resist any attempt to integrate tanker drivers into the electronic call up system because it would impose additional cost on them.

“NARTO members are already operating at a loss, and would not accept any additional cost as charges for being integrated into the electronic call-up system,” he said.

The Managing Director of TTP, the firm handling electronic call-ups on behalf of the NPA, Jama Onwubuariri, had last year told The Guardian that discussions were on to integrate the petroleum tankers into the Eto call-up system to enable sanity at the port access roads.

He said TTP, NPA, the petroleum companies and tanker drivers’ associations were discussing to see how the owners of the trucks can come onboard the Eto app, since they are regular visitors to the port to get petroleum products.  He however clarified that the parties are yet to take a unanimous decision on the matter.

The NARTO boss explained that the tanker owners would welcome any form of solution to address the chaos at the port corridors but would reject any plan to impose some charges before integrating them into the Eto system.

For container trucks using the electronic call-up system, truckers buy the ETO tickets and other associated charges making it a total of N21,500 per truck.

Othman said NARTO members do not have the financial capacity to take out money to pay for the integration, considering the price of a tokumbo truck which goes for N50 million and the huge operating cost, which leaves the owners with little or no gain.

“I buy a truck for N50 million, if you load from Lagos from Abuja, what you are going to pay is N30 per litre. If your truck is loading 40,000 litres you will pay N30 multiplied by 40,000 which is N1.2 million. This is what they pay us for haulage. You spend the money on operations. You buy diesel interchangeably, already it is about N1 million from that N1.2 million. You pay loading fees of N40,000, give the driver allowance of N20,000, already N1,000,060 is gone, how much is your balance for a vehicle of N50 million?,” Othman argued.

“Any small damage on the vehicle, like the tyres when they burst we encounter loss, which sometimes leads to accidents. So where is the money to give any company for rental fees?”

He said while the petroleum tankers want sanity at the port access roads, the integration to the electronic call-up system comes at a cost, noting that the owners do not have provision for any additional cost in operations.

“Just because they want to go and load petroleum products for a particular company, they take a certain amount and give some rent seekers. TTP are rent-seekers, if I am going to load for any of the oil companies, I am expected to dash in and out on the same day and time. Why do we have to give money to rent seekers to go into to load products?”