MARAN Beams Searchlight On Challenges Of Eto Call-Up System
Foremost maritime beat association, Maritime Reporters’ Association of Nigeria (MARAN), will hold a breakfast meeting to beam the searchlight on the challenges of the Eto call-up system.
The Eto Call-Up system is an electronic portal set up to ensure the easy movement of trucks to and from Nigeria’s ports through an electronic ticketing system. After booking and getting a ticket, a truck can then proceed from its park to a pregate, close to the port it scheduled to access from where it is notified, when due, to access the port.
Although the process was conceived to facilitate efficiency in the trucks transport chain, bureaucratic bottlenecks and strong elements within the transport chain have continued to frustrate the process resulting in an unending gridlock along the port access roads.
The event, which will take place at Rockview Hotel, Apapa Lagos, on Thursday, March 7, 2024, will bring together various stakeholders and key operators in Nigeria’s maritime industry to proffer solutions to a menace that has hindered effective transportation of products from the nations seaports.
Speaking on the forthcoming event, President of MARAN, Mr Godfrey Bivbere, in a press statement said that despite the good intentions of the e-call up system, it has faced severe criticism, with some operators alleging that it has exacerbated the traffic crisis and facilitated corruption and extortion.
Continuing, he lamented that critical stakeholders have raised concerns that the platform had deviated from its original purpose and turned into a source of revenue generation and that the port environment has returned to the pre-Hadiza Bala-Usman era.
“The topical issues that will be discussed at the meeting include the efforts that the government through agencies like the Nigerian Ports Authority, has taken to combat these challenges, as well as the role that can be played by stakeholders.h The introduction of e-tag trucks will also be discussed as one of the viable solutions” he disclosed.
Stakeholders expected at the meeting include the Honorable Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Gboyega Isiaka Oyetola, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA); The Nigerian Shippers’ Council; Nigeria Customs Service (NCS); Shipping Companies and Terminal Operators.
Others are the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN), Truck Transit Parks, PSTT, respective truckers’ associations like Lagos State Truck and Cargo Operators Committee (LASTCOC), Nigeria Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO), Association of Maritime Truck Owners (AMATO), Nexus Association of Maritime Transport Operators, NAMTOP, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), amongst others.
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