 President Goodluck Jonathan
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President Jonathan commissions mass transit buses.
Uche Aneke, Abuja
In fulfillment of his promise on palliative for fuel subsidy removal, President Goodluck Jonathan on Sunday launched the first phase of mass transit support scheme comprising of 110 buses.
In his remarks at the launching at the Eagle Square, Abuja, Jonathan said besides ameliorating the suffering of commuters, the scheme is a process of developing mass transit culture for the country.
He underscored the need for the country to have a robust mass transit scheme to bring down the cost of transportation as it is obtainable in developed countries.
Jonathan disclosed that there were various programmes in the offing by the government to subsidise transport scheme in the country.
The President clarified that government did not buy the buses to run the scheme directly as believed in some quarters.
He said the scheme would be run by the private transporters while government would subsidize the scheme to bring down transportation cost.
Jonathan said that the three tiers of government; Federal, States and Local Councils, were involved in the scheme with the support of the transport operator organizations.
The President also used the occasion to re-assure Nigerians that the deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector was in the over-all interest of the country and not to inflict pains on the masses.
He urged the people to ignore campaign of calumny against the policy by some group which he said had politicized the issue.
Jonathan cited example of such campaign launched against him in the social network, Balckberry and twitter that he had travelled to South Africa when Nigerians are suffering whereas he was still in the country.
Earlier, the Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, had said the Federal Government approved N15 billion for the mass transit scheme at zero per cent interest rate.
He said the buses would be given to private mass transit operators to run in order to make transport available and affordable.
Aganga disclosed that half of the buses were sourced from local manufacturers with 10 years maintenance agreement.
The Minister said the decision of government to patronize local manufacturers was to encourage industrialization and to generate jobs.
He said government is partnering with local automobile manufacturers to increase their capacity to about 5000 units in the next eight months.
Aganga also said that government is working on a new Automotive Policy to encourage Foreign Direct Investment in the sector.
Also speaking at the event,. the National President, National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Alhaji Usman Nazif who led his members and leaders of affiliate union to the event expressed support for the removal of subsidy on petrol.
In a communiqué issued by the Transport Operators and read by Nazi , he disclosed the decision by the Federal Government to waive import duty on all needed parts for the local manufacturing of buses was a commendable one.
The communigue further stated that as parts of social responsibility of the transport operators, school children in uniform and the elderly would be charged a further reduced fare on intercity transport operations across the country.
Ugo
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