The Federal Government is to impose sanctions on transporters, particularly operators of road transport firms, who increase their fares indiscriminately.
This was disclosed by the Minister of State for Transportation, Gbemisola Saraki, when she met legislators at the House of Representatives and other stakeholders on Thursday.
Gbemisola Saraki was represented by the Director, Road Transport and Mass Transit Administration, Federal Ministry of Transport, Udu-Ejembi Mary. According to her, the unreasonable transport fare increase was causing untold hardship on travellers and affecting the Nigerian economy negatively.
“The lawmakers were concerned that Nigerians were already viewing the situation as a gross exhibition of greed and monumental corruption on the part of transporters who capitalise on rushing periods to exploit people.
This invariably puts a question mark on the country’s drive or fight against corruption,” Saraki’s representative stated.
She added, “The mandate of the Federal Ministry of Transportation is not only to manage rail, road, inland waterways, sea and air transport nationwide but also to regulate the operators.”
That, according to the Minister, was why stakeholders were to put measures in place to monitor the activities of transporters across the country, especially during festive periods.
Why it matters
Saraki noted that the decision is in order to curtail the obnoxious hikes in fares and also impose sanctions on erring operators to serve as a deterrent to others.
Transport operators at the meeting, however, argued that several factors often caused fare hikes, particularly during festive seasons.
The Deputy National Secretary-General, Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria, Henry Ugwu, outlined some of the factors to include excessive taxation on roads, and high cost of petrol, among others.
He said, “From RTEAN, we’ve not directed our people to increase transport fares. Every festive period you have this rush, but it is not basically because of the rush.
It is, for instance, if you have a fleet of 50 vehicles; when you move passengers from the area of the rush to their destination, you will not see people to bring back. So that is one of the reasons.
Also, as transporters, we’ve been clamouring for the establishment of a transport bank where we can get low-interest rates and we urge the Federal Government to look into this; it will help the sector.”
Ugwu added, “Another thing is that we are suffering from triple taxation on our highways. States, local governments and their agencies and even vigilantes collect money from us.”
The RTEAN official argued that transporters were not exploiting passengers, stressing that the sector was not properly regulated as any vehicle owner could pick passengers from any location without much interference from the authorities.
Hello, sorry sirs
Nigeria represents pure confusion. No common sense. There’s a saying that it does someone with no common sense any good to get an education. Our president, ministers etc. are educated people (semi-educated in the case of our President) with no common sense. On the one hand, they will give Dangote, Atiku etc. exclusive rights in certain areas and then on the other, they try to tell people, like transporters, what prices they can charge.