Call-up Tickets Racketeering Push Haulage Cost by 200% at Lagos Ports 

The racketeering of E-call up tickets by middle men has pushed haulage cost up by 200 per cent at Lagos ports -Apapa and Tin-Can Island, findings by The Daily Times has revealed.

The E call-up system, also known as (Eto), is an electronic platform introduced to remove human interference in the process of calling up trucks to the ports. The call-up platform, dubbed Eto, was deployed for the scheduling, entry and exit of trucks into the Lagos ports.

The Eto call-up system is being managed by a private sector firm, Trucks Transit Parks Limited (TTP), since 2020.

Before now, it takes less than three days for truck drivers to exit the Lilypond Terminal in Ijora, which is the designated pre-gate terminal for all port-bound trucks, to be issued an Eto ticket but currently, it takes between two to three weeks for trucks in Lilypond with terminal delivery orders (TDOs) to legitimately get an Eto ticket to be able to access the port.

With this delay, desperate truck owners procured Eto tickets from third party at exorbitant price of N150,000 to access the port.

This, however, pushed up the haulage cost to about N700,000 from N250,000 it were few months ago

Our correspondent gathered that Apapa to Sango-otta, Ogun state that goes for N250,000 is now N700,000 while Apapa to Ikeja that Truckers, hiterto, charge N200,000 now goes for N600,000.

Also, truckers that charge N200,000 from Apapa port to Costain and Tin Can Island port to Mile 2 now charge N500,000 respectively.

Confirming the hike in haulage cost, a truck owner, Yusuf Liadi, said the racketeers are responsible for the high cost of hauling cargoes from the Lagos ports.

Liadi, said the racketeers started selling the Eto ticket for N50,000, move to N100,000. According to him, ticket currently sells for N150,00 and predicted that before the end of the month, it may sell for N200,000 because of the yuletide season.

Liadi stated that currently, it takes as much as two weeks to get called into the port by TTP, thereby, creating a backlog that leads to truckers sabotaging the system.

“If you want easy and fast access to the port, you can buy an Eto ticket for N150,000. Two weeks ago, it was sold for N100,000 and when it just started , it was N50,000 but the demand keeps increasing and the price has also increased.

“But if you want to buy the ticket online using the normal process of going to the Lilypond garage, the trucker will spend between one and two weeks due to the delay; unfortunately, we don’t know what is causing the delay.”

According to him, the racketeers are currently selling fake tickets to truckers, he, however, urged TTP to resolve the backlog because they are losing their money.

“TTP should address the issues causing delays in the Eto call-up system in order to eliminate the fraudulent activities truckers faced while accessing the ports. Infact, racketeers are selling fake Eto tickets to truckers. Three of my friends have lost N100,000 each as racketeers gave expired tickets to them,” he explained.

Speaking to journalists, the chairman, Lilypond Export Terminal, Oluremi Olabanji, fingered some staff of Truck Transit Park (TTP), as responsible for the crisis.

According to him, the firm’s staff are colluding with outsiders by manipulating the system, saying haulage of N200,000 to Ilasamaja now goes for N450,000.

He, however, warned that haulage cost would cost N1million if ticket racketeering go on unhindered.

“The transporters are not finding it easy because those people getting this money don’t have truck. They are after getting the plate numbers and start selling call up, they don’t know how much a tyre cost, they don’t know how much it cost to maintain a truck, they are just a cartel. Once things are getting better, they work to frustrate it so that they can continue to benefit from the rot.”

“Look at when we were taking containers for N1 million to N2 million, they want to take us back to that era which I am begging the government not to allow them to take over the system.

“Some of the TTP staff are part of this cartel but it is difficult to get them. We are finding it too difficult to take trucks into the port. There was a change for few days but it has gone back to what it used to be. The cartel is working seriously to overpower the system,” he stated.

Olabanji, however, recalled that the governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, had worked very hard to see that irregularities are curtailed but to no avail.

“I thank God for the new committee (Lagos State Trucks and Cargo Operators Committee) set up by the Lagos State Government. I know that they will do it better. But the only way the government will make this thing to work is to fish out all those bad eggs behind this racket and take them out of the system.

You can see that gridlock has returned to port access road, why? Because they will work overnight, they will pass the whole trucks at night and they will block the whole road during the daytime such that ordinary people who go about their businesses in the day won’t be able to move and there is nothing you can do because when you look at the documents with them, they are genuine.

“Lillypond closed because of these cartel and the government relinquished a whole terminal. Go there now, you will discover that they have transformed the terminal into taskforce zone for the call up system. We are not saying that they should not make their own money but they should give room for the system put in place by the government to work,” he said.

He noted that trucking of cargoes from the port had increased from N400,000 to N800,000.

“I have some consignments that are going to Ilasamaja here in Lagos, two to three months ago, I collected N200,000 as transport charge from the importer. The last delivery I made to his warehouse cost N350,000 and today, the cost is N450,000 for one by twenty feet containers to the same Ilasamaja.

“The initial amount that we agreed on was N200,000 with which I have been delivering to his warehouse but when this selling of call up ticket was introduced, it jumped to N350,000 and today, it is N450,000. This is my own experience and I am sure other agents are experiencing the same thing.”

The ANLCA chairman disclosed further that the challenge was not limited to trucks with import laden cargoes but export laden containers as well.

“When it takes export containers two to three weeks to get into the port and before it gets to the port, the booking has expired and contents spoiled. There are some goods that I exported in the past but on getting to the destination, they were rejected on the ground that the contract has expired. And since then, I was discouraged from export.

However, the TTP has said that the fraudulent practices are not facilitated by the company or the Eto system.

According to the head of operations, TTP, Irabor Akonoman, the failure of truckers to affix their plate numbers on their vehicles allowed for potential swapping of plate numbers between trucks, leading to the resale of tickets at inflated prices.

He said, “TTP still sells Eto tickets at NPA-approved prices, which range from N10,750 and not exceeding N21,500 with VAT inclusive, depending on the parks or the pre-gate that trucks are electronically scheduled to go through before they are batched and released to the port.

“While some truckers book Eto tickets through the standard procedures, some opt to circumvent the process by not using their tickets but reselling them to those in a hurry to access the port.”

Akonoman said TTP will obtain NPA approval to implement a consequence management system that would disable the user account of any transporter or agents found to have committed this infraction or any other ones that contravenes the Standard Operating Procedure that sabotages the electronic call-up system.

“We are in the process of implementing advanced technologies such as Radio-Frequency Identification and other measures, including the mandatory display of permanent plate numbers on trucks. These initiatives aim to prevent the swapping of plate numbers and, subsequently, discourage ticket racketeering,” he stated.