Senate Rejects Bill For New Road Transport-Agency

Senate Rejects Bill For New Road Transport-Agency

The Senate on Thursday threw out a Bill that seeks to establish an agency to regulate road transport and the transportation profession in Nigeria.

The bill, sponsored by the Deputy Senate Leader, Oyelola Ashiru, failed to scale a second reading because of the popular opinion of lawmakers that Nigeria doesn’t need additional agency at the moment.

Senators rather expressed willingness to support any legislation that would reduce the number of federal agencies in line with Stephen Orosanye’s report currently being implemented by the Federal Government.

In his contribution to the debate on the Bill, a former President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Senator Adams Oshiomhole, vehemently opposed the bill.

Oshiomhole said, “The police have the traffic division and they do their job so diligently so that if there are roadblocks you will find them trying to manage traffic. If there are accidents they do everything to establish who is wrong, who is right, and prepare to go to court if the party decides to go to court.”

He also said the Federal Road Safety Commission was later established to manage and regulate traffic situation across the country.

Oshiomhole, however, expressed regrets that the FRSC had not been performing its responsibility as expected.

He said: “Thereafter, we set up the Federal Road Safety Commission. I don’t know the experience of my fellow distinguished senators. If you ask me, I do not think even the Road Safety Commission has added value to road transportation, whether it is promoting safety using the traffic laws.

“I think what we need is to make existing institutions work. Where they fail to work, we evoke sanction. Just recently, I had a conversation with a fellow senator in these chambers.

“I think this House must be seen to act in a manner that is in tune with those broad policy statements that we have accepted, namely to avoid multiplication of agencies that have duplicated functions.

“Why Nigeria is committed to cutting federal government excessive overhead expenditure, more agencies should not be created.

“I think many of us have reservations about the incompetence of the Nigeria Road Safety Commission, which is my view, that they are incompetent, they are not adding value, and yet they are doing so much for the public treasury.

“Let us, in line with the core spirit of cutting down costs, meet other more challenging expenses. We don’t need to create agencies for everything.”

Other senators who contributed and opposed the bill are, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan; and Victor Umeh, among others.