The Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners, NARTO, has called on the federal government to establish transport development bank to address the issue of unsafe trucks on Nigerian road.
The Executive Secretary of NARTO and the president of the West African Truck Union Aloga Ogbogo, in an exclusive chat with a media correspondent in Lagos on Sunday said there is need for the nation’s logistics system going beyond Dangote alone.
He also reinforced the need for the government to provide a facility to address truck refleeting.
According to him, “The issue in the trucking sector are not far-fetched. You see, logistics has one problem and these are the things I am telling you, the trucking industry is faced with lots of problems. If you talk about trucking within the West African sub-region, I am not sure any body is doing outside Dangote. Nobody is doing it outside Dangote and he has fleets. We need to go beyond that, Dangote alone has over 6000 trucks and this is not about one person it is about the industry. The government need to address the issue of truck refleeting, government should provide a facility to address it. Just like we have bank of commerce and industry, where id the transport development bank. If is about putting up a legislature to direct the national assembly to create a transport development bank and then you create a fund just like a trust fund. An average new truck cost at about N75m and the rate at which these trucks are aging they are really aging.”
“Let us look at haulage for example, trucks are they there, we have aging trucks and for the aging trucks we need to address this issue of truck refleeting. The aged trucks need to be renewed and then you see again we don’t have a regulatory body that will regulate the haulage sector. So there are lots of issues that will militate the success of that project and they are basically have to be addressed. We have bank of commerce, industry agriculture, where is the transport development bank? These trucks are aging. Because the transportation, trucks are the prime mover of the economy. There are certain things you need to address before that project will see the light of the day” he concluded.
