CALL UP PROTEST: NCJTFLCA BACKS COMTUA , OTHERS , CONDEMNS CONTINUED EXTORTION
By Mcanthony Onuoha
National Compliance Joint Task Force of Licensed Clearing Agents- (NCJTFLCA) has thrown its weight behind Council of Maritime Transport Unions and Associations – (COMTUA) following its heated protest against continued extortion via Truck call up system (Eto)
COMTUA and other port Logistics providers recently embarked on a protest against the criminalization of ETO call up system , an initiative of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), originally designed to coordinate trucks access to the port, and also decongest the port corridor .
COMTUA has accused the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) personnel of criminally leveraging the Eto System to enrich themselves . The brisk business, according to transporters, makes them part with over N300,000 on each trip , which they say , is emasculating their business .
(The President of NCJTFLCA, High Chief Dr. Basil Chudi Nwolisa)
In his reaction, via a telephone conversation with the Prestige Magazine Online, the President of NCJTFLCA, High Chief Dr. Basil Chudi Nwolisa, berated the Nigeria Ports Authority for allowing the criminalization of the truck call up system, saying that what was originally introduced to Nigerians as the solution to a monstrous gridlock that characterized the port access road for over a decade has now become a fraudulent system through which NPA personnel , the Police, LASTMA operatives and even road urchins enrich themselves.
Nwolisa lamented the endemic corruption profoundly evident in every sector of the economy and private enterprises, passionately condemning the charade that has continued to define virtually every system.
According to Nwolisa, ‘ the main objective of NCJTFLCA is to curb corruption at the Port and we can not fold our hands and watch some unscrupulous elements in the cloak of personnel of government agencies criminalize a system that was originally introduced to free up the port corridor that was before now, taken over by heavy trucks, until the intervention of the joint Taskforce team led by Lagos State Government, which is the only reason we have free human and vehicular movement to and fro Apapa and Tincan ports today”.
“NCJTFLCA is hereby calling on the Federal Government to review the Eto call up system that is being handled by the Management of Nigeria Ports Authority . It has to be properly run . We can’t continue like this. That is why we are in support of COMTUA. And that is the same way NCJTFLCA will support any group that is against corrupt practices in the port industry, ” Nwolisa stated assuredly .
