Operators of tow vehicles at Muritala Muhammed Airport, Lagos have appealed to airport workers and visiting motorists to cooperate and show understanding with them as they carry out their operations within the airport environment.
The operators appealed to Nigerian public not to interprete the execution of their concession agreements with Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) on parking of vehicles within the airport as acts of extortion and violence.
The tow vehicle operators said they signed agreements with FAAN to enforce compliance with the parking rules and sanity at designated car parks within the airport environment.
The three tow vehicle operators, Y.Michicka Enterprises Ltd, Bilafari Limited and Turas Limited at a joint meeting with their workers to review their mode of operations and complaints of extortion and violence allegedly leveied against them by some members of the public, urged motorists in the airport to have a clear understanding of why they should not engage in indiscriminate parking, even as they called on the motorists and the general public not to hesitate at reporting any case of extortion or violence to their offices.
While Y. Michika is designated to ensure that no vehicle is parked indiscriminately along the link road from Presidential Lounge and International wing of the airport and the entire stretch of the road from NAHCO to 7 and 8, on both sides; Bilafari Limited handles similar duties at the departure area of international airport and Turas Limited is saddled with the responsibilities to ensure that there are no indiscriminate parking of vehicles within the domestic wing of the airport and its adjoining roads.
The Chief Executive Officers of the three companies who also reminded their workers that the primary goal of their concession agreements with FAAN was to maintain sanity of parking of vehicles within the airport environment with human face, warned that anyone found guilty of extortion or violence against motorists or members of the public would be summarily dismissed from the job.
They also reiterated the need for them to ensure that their relationship with the public is modest and carried out within the ambit of the rules of their engagements.
The tow vehicle operators however insisted that fines are imposed on erring motorists inline with agreements they have with FAAN.
They also explained that any motorists who resisted and made troubles with their operatives may be asked to pay higher fine.
“The fine we impose on erring motorist is not without the knowledge of management of FAAN. It is N5,000 five thousand naira only. It is very reasonable. We may however fine motorists who resisted arrest higher and that is ten thousand naira only (N10,000,” they said.
Notwithstanding they, explained that not every owner of vehicle brought to their offices was made to pay fines; especially when they have genuine reasons for parking where they were arrested.
“To ensure fairness and that motorists are not unjustly punished, we give them the opportunity to defend themselves when they come to our offices to secure the release of their impounded vehicles. Some would tell you they were recieving phone calls and their engines were still running when they were arrested and had their vehicles impounded. We check through their call logs to know when the calls were made and when the arrests were carried out. If we found out that there were correlation between the time on their phones and when they were arrested, we allowed them to go without paying any fine.
“Sometimes we see vehicles parked on the roads with children or pregnant women on board. We approached them to know their missions. When they told us they were waiting for someone, we directed them to move the car to the parks or more to another place. But instead of complying with our directives, they would begin to make calls to report us to some officials within the airport or calling on their husbands; to call whom they knew within the airport environment to intervene in their cases even when their vehicles were yet to be impounded.
“We also discovered that some motorists, especially those who came to pick their bosses, had the car parks fees with them but would not want to pay the money instead, they keep driving around the airport. When you noticed their movements and challenged them, they would want to be violent. The truth is always revealed after we arrested such drivers, impounded their vehicles and their bosses came around to secure the release of their vehicles We had cases where we had to plead with some of their bosses not to sack them. So drivers who know they may be sacked, if their offices got to know that they were arrested for violating parking rules in the airport, would always want to be violent with our workers to escape arrest.
“We have cases where some of our workers were knocked down by some of these recalcitrant and reckless drivers,” the operators explained.
On the alleged cases of violent behaviours of the operatives by members of the public, the operators denied the allegations, saying, as long as the motorists are gentle and cooperating with them when arrested for violating the parking rules, there wouldn’t be any reason to exchange in arguments.
They said, “Our workers are not violent because we trained them on how to be friendly with airport users. But in a situation where a motorist realised that his or her vehicle was about to be clamped for violating parking rules and declined to release the vehicle or follow us to our offices, but decided to drive dangerous to scare us away and avoid arrest, we would apply the right caution by putting the stoppers under the vehicle. But when he or she got the tyres damaged, they began to beat our operatives.”
Even with many cases of unfortunate behaviours from some of the motorists, the operators claimed they still went all out to assist them when they had technical problems on the roads within the airport environment.
“Sometimes we encounter some motorists who have issues with their vehicles we assisted them by towing the vehicles away from where they could obstruct free flow of traffic. We have instructed our operatives not to impound any vehicle parked along the road if the driver is receiving calls or if it developed any technical problem. For instance a vehicle with flat tyre or experiencing overheating must not be impounded. What we did in such situations was to help the drivers move the vehicles away from the location to ensure safety.
We know that a vehicle is a mechanical device which can develop problems or break down at any time and place; what we did when such situations arose, especially at a bend, was that, we helped tow the vehicle to a safer location, for the driver to fix the tyres or for engine to cool down. We do this without imposing any fine. It is however unfortunate that when such a driver sees our operatives approaching him or her with tow vehicle, the next thing they did without first listening to us, was creating a scene to attract attentions of passersby and make them believe we are having problems with them. Whereas, we only wanted to assist them to solve their problems. There are cases where vehicles developed faults along the road and the owner didn’t know what to do or have the instrument like jack to fix them immediately; we can’t allow such vehicle to be left on the spot unattended to, we give them jacks or offered to tow them to our yards where the owners come to fix them without paying fines or demurrage,” the operators recalled.
“The people who always give us problems are mostly escorts who came around to pick their principals and uniform men from outside the airport environment. Because this set of uniform men are not familiar with airport rules and regulations, they feel they are free to do whatever they like as long as they are in uniforms. They always forget that they are in a highly regulated environment where everyone plays according to the rules.
” On many occasions they encouraged other motorists to park indiscriminately, claiming that they came together.
“But sometimes luck runs against such indulged motorists when the principals arrived earlier than expected and the defaulting motorists are left behind by the escorts to face the consequences of their actions.
On the allegations of acts of violence and or extortion against their workers, the COEs who agreed that like most employees, some field workers sometimes misbehave when they are left to carry out operations on their own, however, claimed they don’t tolerate any act of indiscipline from any member of their staff. They insisted that any member of staff found culpable is always shown the way out.
“Workers are sent out to work on the field. You can’t be there all the time. Because every worker believes his own agenda which on most occasions are contrary to employers’ policies. With that notion, they tend to misbehave while dealing with members of the public especially when money is involved. But if we have such complaints and found the workers culpable, they are relieved of their jobs immediately.
“Our appeal to members of the public is to do us favour by reporting any act of violence or extortion they observed with any member of our staff instead of arguing with them on the streets
“Motorists should insist that they want to follow them to our offices. When they get here they have the right to state their own side of the story and if they are found not culpable, they are allowed to go without paying any fine.
“It is on record that, arguments or conflicts usually broke out between motorists and our operatives when they disagreed on negotiations. An enforcement officer may want to have a quick one on a motorist and asked him or her to pay a certain amount which the motorists may found outrageous, then there would be problems.
“Whenever or wherever you are arrested in Lagos airport for violating parking rules, don’t argue with the enforcement officers just ask them to lead you to their office and when you are to pay don’t pay any money without getting to our offices where it would be documented with receipts issued,” the CEOs said
Everything said here are not true. As a staff, have had reasons to go to their office to bail out a friend come ng to my office, he paid at a designated car park at training school to ask me for direction to my office at NCAA. This guy’s meet him at the bus stop, clamped the car even when they saw him making call. Alas, they towed him to the AIB area of their office. I went there, Identify my self, even show the call log. But we’re not just ready to listen.
They later told me that bcos am a staff, he should pay 5,000. (Which they claim is the fine).
After much argument, had to pay the fine even as a staff with evidence.