The Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners has called for the establishment of a transport development bank by the Federal Government to address the issue of rickety trucks on Nigerian roads.
The Executive Secretary of NARTO, Algoa Ogbogo, in an exclusive chat with our correspondent in Lagos on Sunday,
Ogbogo who is also the president of the West African Truck Union, also said there is a need for the nation’s logistics system to go beyond Dangote alone adding that it is not about one person being in the industry.
Ogbogo, however, restates that the government should look for a means of addressing the issue of truck refleeting.
“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 anybody is doing it 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 needs to address the issue of truck refleeting, government should provide a facility to address it. Just like we have the bank of commerce and industry, where id the transport development bank. It 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 about N75m and the rate at which these trucks are aging they are really aging” he said
According to him, “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 basically have to be addressed. We have a bank of commerce, and industrial 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.
Source: The Punch
