WHY PEOPLE GO BANKRUPT DOING TRUCK BUSINESS IN NIGERIA: THE DRIVERS (2)
In my last article we looked at the roles “Mechanics”
play in making truck owners go bankrupt when they engage in truck business in
Nigeria. Today we will be looking at the roles DRIVERS play.
The golden rule is “do not put your trust in any driver, they will always disappoint you”! ...
Truck drivers are who I referred to as a “necessary evil”, you cannot do without
them (because you are not conditioned to drive your truck) so when dealing with
the truck drivers you have to be very careful on your use of carrot and stick
approach. If you are too hard on them, you will be at the receiving end and if you are
too soft you will be dealt with seriously! How to manage truck drivers in the
haulage business is another topic I will be looking at in my upcoming posts
but for now let us look at what truck driver’s do that may result to bankruptcy
for truck owners:
1. UN-OFFICIAL
USE OF TRUCKS BY DRIVERS
There is a story of a driver who was given an
official assignment to haulage goods to Akure in Ondo State, the truck was
supposed to get to the destination by latest 5pm (17:00hr GMT) on that day and was to return to Lagos the following day. To everyone’s amazement, the
truck was still in Akure after 2 days, when asked what might have happened the
driver claimed that they are yet to offload his truck. I know the question you
guys might ask is can’t you verify from the manager in-charge at the destination point? Of course you will get the same reply most of the time (perhaps he/she have
been compromised or they are co-conspirators this is what I am still
investigating ). If you also ask the fellow drivers, you will most likely get
the exact same answer. To cut the long story short, the true story was that the
driver had loaded the truck from Akure, traveled to Benin and from Benin took
another load to Ilorin and from Ilorin another load to Ikorodu and guess what
happened on the way to Ikorodu, one of the truck aisle developed a fault. At
that juncture, he had no choice but to call his boss (after 4 days!) that… “on his way back to Lagos, he discovered that
something went wrong with the aisle so he needs a mechanic”. Of course, the
truth transpired from the motor-boy
(assistant to the driver) because he was cajoled and promised a driver slot.
Let it be clear that drivers can use your truck
for 2 or 3 trips outside the official arrangement, they will pocket all the money and
yet do 1 trip for the owner and still get their salaries.
Another angle to the un-official use of your truck
is the “reloading of your truck on the way back”, this is common
practice, all drivers do it. They will ensure they look for a load to carry when bringing your truck back home.
The effect of all these activities is that your
truck’s engine will reduce in efficiency much quicker than expected, the aisle
will develop fault much sooner and there will be an increase in the rate of wear and
tear of your tyres (without any monetary gain).
As for tracking your trucks, yes it’s a very good
idea I totally support it but do you know the drivers now have a trick to confuse
you?Lol
Rule 1: Put a time-frame to all your trips, monitor it closely both personally and electronically (use of truck trackers)
2. CALLING
OF TRUCK OWNERS DURING OFFICIAL JOURNEY ABOUT A FAULT IN THE TRUCK WITH THE INTENTION
OF FINANCIAL GAIN
A lot of drivers are fond of this act, there was a story of a friend’s driver who called to inform my friend that on his way to Ibadan, his truck developed a fault at Ogere and that the Ogun State Transport Compliance And Enforcement Corps (TRACE) which is a version of LASMA (Lagos State Transport Management Authority) just threatened to tow his vehicle and that they demanded N50,000 not to tow the truck to their office and that he has bargained it down to N30,000.
The driver knew my
friend doesn’t know much and that he will panic if he hears such bad news, and
of course the driver won!
Some drivers even go
to the length of collecting money for truck parts that are not damaged just to
extort money from the owners of the trucks (this usually occur when they voyage on a long
journey).
Rule 2: Do not release money to the drivers for a service or truck item unless you verify yourself even if they are in Sokoto, go there!
3. SELLING
OF TRUCK TYRES
If you are into truck business please try to monitor your tyres very well! If you don’t, you will end up spending all your profit on tyre(s), a tyre costs between N42,000 to N50,000.
The truth is that many
drivers are fond of selling tyres, the value of a tyre ranges between N20,000 to N30,000 at the black market and if they can sell 4 out of 6 that’s a
whopping N80,000 or N120,000 respectively that’s something
for them to party. Please note, they will always complain of bad tyres 3 months
from the date of purchase of the brand new tyres. The technique they use is
very simple, they liaise with the tyre repairer “furganizer” to replace the new
tyres with old ones,they do that systematically and not at once.
Normally, a brand new
tyre should last for more than 6 months, if the tyres were bought during the raining
season then it will most definitely last longer because by that time, the
temperature of the road is very cool and conductive for the tyres.
Rule 3: Write down the serial numbers of all your tyres and add a trade mark of your company to your tyres
Others illicit activities truck drivers engage includes: selling of diesels or fuel, inflating the volume of diesel for a journey etc etc
I hope you enjoyed this episode, join me again next time as we look into “why people go bankrupt doing truck business in Nigeria” from the Managers perspective.
Comments
Post a Comment