The Co-founder and Managing Director of Trucks Transit Parks Limited, Jama Onwubuariri, in this interview with BAYO AKOMOLAFE, speaks on the sorry state of infrastructure at the ports and how his company has helped to reduce cost of moving cargoes
How would you assess the maritime industry and do you see the port as ready for more technology?
The Nigerian maritime industry is a highly profitable industry that generates trillions of naira in revenue to Nigeria. The Nigerian Economic Summit Group forecast that the industry could generate over N7trillion in revenue annually.
There are massive opportunities to attract local and foreign investment and players to leverage the industry’s growth, increase contribution to Nigerian economy and reposition it in the global shipping and maritime ranking.
The growth of the Nigerian maritime industry has been hampered by dilapidated infrastructures at the port, lack of adequate and sophisticated infrastructure and technology, inefficiency from terminal operators, manual documentation and checking processes, high freight cost, inconsistencies in government policies.
According to World Bank report in 2020, Nigeria was ranked 110 out of 160 in the logistics performance index. Despite these shortfalls, it remains a favourable market. For decades, traffic congestion has been the major challenge with the Apapa and Tincan ports that affected cargo evacuation from the port, spiked the costs of moving cargo into and from port to locations in and out of the port.
The throughput of evacuating products from the industrial hubs in Apapa and Tincan declined. This challenge is what our technology solution was deployed to solve in collaboration with the Nigerian Ports Authority and Lagos State Government. Technology is a critical factor behind the transformation and development seen in the most developed and top ranked ports globally.
For the Nigerian maritime industry to achieve the projected growth, revenue estimate, be attractive and competitive, digitalisation of port process and investment in technology are the underlying factors that must be urgently embraced.
Cargo throughput will definitely increase as soon as Lekki Deep Sea Port begins operations in September. How prepared is TTP?
The Lekki Deep Sea Port is projected to have a capacity of 2.7 million Twenty Equiva- l e n t Units (TEUs) a n nu a l ly. When operations at the deep-sea port commence, it will reduce vessel berth at Apapa and Tincan Ports thus reducing truck traffic in these locations. However, there is an urgent n e e d Sea Port whilst we continue to engage with all stakeholders.
How have you used electronic channel to curb extortion, human interference, which are the major challenges on port access road?
Indeed, there is no business without its challenges. We have not allowed those challenges to deter us from our mission of using technology to solve traffic and mobility problems in the country and to bring about more efficient scheduling and movement of trucks in and out of the ports, terminals and other controlled locations.
In terms of human interference, we had more of this while we were still teething; we are now working on more digital solutions that would gradually eliminate the need for paper or human interference. We are working towards a contactless access system which will further reduce human interference. This requires a lot of stakeholder engagement and financial investments so it’s a gradual process.
We are also conscious of our environment and the resistance that might follow this. Planning is equally required to train users on a new automated process. With regard to extortion, which has been a bane to the movement of trucks within Apapa and Tin Can, we have seen a drastic reduction, people can now move into the ports without having to pay a dime.
Those locations where people are inconvenienced and are required to part with money is no longer standard practice or sine qua non to access the port or other controlled locations because all you need to access the ports is to make a booking on Electronic call up (Eto) system and not the settling of someone.
We know that there are still several points where extortions occur and that is why we have an ongoing engagement with the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and Lagos State Government to streamline these checkpoints, identify the ones that are needed, get rid of the ones that are not needed and use an electronic manifest of enforcement team on duty to check any illegal activity and to allow ease of reporting anyone who acts in an unauthorised manner.
We are hopeful that these controls will be implemented soon so that this issue of extortion will be completely eliminated. Some users are not conversant with how the technology works. We keep providing training to help most users to be able to do selfservice. There is also the issue of adapting to a new system of doing things, some are yet to come to terms with it.
So, there was opposition and resistance from some. The willingness to move from a manual system to an electronic system is also a challenge, perhaps due to fear of the unknown.
We therefore continue to partner with relevant regulators and bodies to train drivers on the use of the app and on other safety measures in a bid to improve digital literacy and empower them to use the app by themselves rather than employ a third party who will help them at an extra cost.
In 2021, your company claimed that 76,000 trucks were registered on the ETO app, which has obviously led to traffic reduction by 50 per cent. How many trucks do you have now on the system and at what is the cost to truck owners and your organisation?
So far, TTP has over 85,000 trucks registered on the Eto application and has processed over 906,907 port and non-port bound trucks on the platform.
We have also achieved a massive reduction in the cost of moving cargo by 65per cent thus helping businesses to save costs. Our solution has crashed the former cost of between N150,000/N250,000 to between N5,000 to 30,000 depending on the location that you are coming from, the business that you are going to do and the processes or standard operating procedures that have been put in place.
One year after, what is your assessment of the e-call up taking into account traffic gridlock and the cost of cargo movement?
Eto has had an evident positive impact on the traffic gridlock along the port access roads. Before now you would see truck traffic stretching all the way to Yaba, Onipanu, Surulere heading into Apapa.
That’s no longer the case, you would see just some little traffic closer to the port. That speaks to the impact of the electronic call up system on the environment where we operate. We’ve also been to achieve a significant level of order in terms of being able to stay in your garage or office and be assured that your trucks can move from a certain point and get to the desired destination within a good time.
Before, it used to take about two weeks for trucks to move from Mile 12 into Apapa, now, it only takes about two days or maximum three days. Again, this shows the level of impact that the call up system has had. In terms of network of facilities, we have over 80 facilities that are connected on the eto platform so you can book to go to any of them using this platform.
Truck drivers have expressed various levels of satisfaction with the fact that they no longer need to settle certain officials before they are allowed access into the ports.
Neither do they need to know someone that they must settle for a slot to move on Federal Government roads. In terms of financial impact, previously, it would cost over a million naira to move cargo out of the ports, but now it’s within N350,000 to N450,000.
The cost that the drivers pay used to range from 100,000 to 300,000 for undocumented items. Now, the total cost they spend is between N5,000 and N30,000 to be able to book depending on the number of facilities they must use and the distance of the facility where they’re coming from relative to where they are going.
There is also a massive reduction in traffic along the Apapa and Tin Can roads, so the traffic that is as a result of extortion has massively been reduced.
How is the Tafiyah app doing in the market and which other tech apps do you have?
Currently, our tech apps in the market are Eto and Tafiyah.
Tafiyah is a Hausa word for movement or to move. We created it out of a local need identified when we compared the end-to-end last mile trend in the global logistics industry with our manual, intermediary dependent haulage industry in Nigeria.
There is a lot of inefficiencies when a cargo owner and a truck owner rely on third party to get new business. So, Tafiyah is an electronic marketplace, where the closest truck to a cargo location can be seen on a dashboard by the owner of the cargo; the parties can then negotiate the cost of the haulage, make payment and then proceed to fulfil the service.
This cuts out the need for trucks to queue endlessly on the road waiting for jobs and for trucks that have already gotten jobs to lose them because they are too far away from the cargo location and unable to meet pickup timelines.
We are gradually on boarding truck owners and tweaking the app to suit customer needs.
What is your assessment of your relationship with port stakeholders, especially truckers?
We have a cordial relationship with our stakeholders in and out of the ports, including the truckers.
Even though there were initially a few truckers who were reluctant to buy into our Eto software especially because they were not digitally literate. They have now come to embrace the application and the number of truckers signed up on the app attests to that. We have also received feedback from many truckers about the positive impact that Eto has had on their operations, especially as it relates to reduction in traffic and quicker access to the ports.
We know that there are some issues that are yet to be resolved such as the number of checkpoints on port access roads, but we have continued to champion meetings and conversations with the relevant parties to ensure equity and fairness.
And internally as an organisation, we continue to employ competent Nigerians that are helping us build a stellar app that address the needs of the truckers and of the industry. We also have a 24-hour customer service desk that we encourage truckers to reach out to give suggestions, make inquiries, make requests and even lay complaints. We do all these so that we can maintain a cordial relationship with our stakeholders, who are very critical to the success of our business.
The port industry is ever-changing.
Can you give an insight into your future business plans?
We look forward to launching another product which is currently in the pipeline.
We also expect that Eto would organise the entire truck traffic in Apapa, both wet and dry cargo, and be deployed proactively in other locations where truck traffic is gradually gaining momentum.
We expect that with Tafiyah, we would be able to shorten the time it takes an idle truck to be matched to ready cargo, reducing carbon emissions in the ecosystem, improving trip time, reducing haulage cost and preserving the lifespan of the trucks.
Meanwhile, we will continue making efforts to expand the electronic call-up to other ports such as the Lekki Deep Sea Port. There are also activities ramping up in the eastern ports in Nigeria, these are all locations where we hope to have the call-up system implemented.
