Ease of doing business: NPA MD begins new week working on TinCan Port access road

As part of efforts aimed at consolidating the gains recorded in the clearance of illegal check points, extortion points, and shanties on the ports corridor in Lagos, the Managing Director /CEO of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mr. Mohammed Bello Koko, resumed work in the new week on Monday, March 25, on the Tincan Island Port access road.

The state of the road and the checkpoints erected on it had resulted in traffic gridlock.

Speaking on the sidelines of the unscheduled spot check, the NPA boss restated the authorities zero tolerance for the impediments to doing business at the nation’s ports.

“Our zero tolerance for all forms of impediments to the free flow of traffic is no fluke, and we are poised to consolidate the gains we have recorded first in Apapa and now in Tincan.

“We are grateful to the Honourable Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, His Excellency, Adegboyega Oyetola (CON), and the Lagos State Governor for the tremendous support we have received in this regard,” Persecondnews quotes Bello Koko as saying.

He described port access roads as international corridors, pointing out that
traffic gridlock on such road networks negates port productivity and causes international embarrassment.

He said:”Ports access roads as international corridors, which means traffic gridlock along such sensitive road networks, apart from negating port productivity, is an international embarrassment that requires the synergy of all stakeholders to tackle sustainably.

“Although the causes of the gridlock are rooted in factors external to the NPA, we have a duty as the gateway to the national economy to take the front-line role in tackling this menace.”

On the menace of heaps of refuse blocking the public drains, Bello Koko said: “Although I have directed our relevant in-house department to commence desilting of the drainages and clearance of the refuse, we will enlist the cooperation and intensify synergy with Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) and the Federal Ministry of Works, under whose purview waste and road management reside, to arrest the ugly trend.”.

Persecondnews recalls that the Bello Koko-led management of NPA had recently received the commendation of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) for clearing the perennial traffic gridlock that had hitherto made access to Lagos Ports of Apapa and Tincan difficult.