The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) Nigeria has called on the federal government to consider adding a particular sum of money to the amount payable by vehicle owners to renew their licenses annually to fund the development of road infrastructure.
The National Director of CILT Nigeria, Mr. Paul Ndibe who made this call while reacting to the recent suspension of debate on the bill seeking to establish petrol tax to fund the road sector on the floor of the National Assembly pointed out that anything that would touch on the price of petroleum products would spark off confusion in the land.
Ndibe added that government needed to consult further and allow the price of petroleum products to float on its own saying that government could decide to do so through renewal of license by motorists, that way, it could be sure of capturing every vehicle that is on the road.
According to him,”Government can decide one way or the other, they have removed the toll gates, government cannot necessarily re-introduce the toll gates but even through the licensing of vehicles, renewal of licenses of vehicles, you add a particular sum of money to that, then at this point, you are sure you are capturing every vehicle that is on the road. That can be more meaningful.
“But once you touch anything on petroleum, you will annoy a lot of people. So, my thinking is that the issue of petroleum pricing should be allowed to float on its own, then if you want to capture, because if a vehicle is road worthy, it is only then that it is on the road. It is not an amount of money you are looking at generating at a go, it is something that will overtime increment.
“So, government should commit to it and then on its own set out a base for this fund and incrementally increase it through a particular amount of money they can put on licensing of vehicles. So, as you renew the license of those vehicles, you are paying at the same time a particular sum of money that will go to this fund. In that case, it will be less painful and you will cover every aspect of the users of the facility and allowing the issue of petroleum prices to go on its own untouched. That will be a better approach”.
He maintained that there would be no need to enact a bill to get the issue of road infrastructure addressed as according to him, bill alone may not be able to address it.
“What will address the problem is a political will. That political will can also be executed through the Federal Ministry of Works. Road expansion, road building and all that are essentially issues around the purview of the Federal Ministry of Works. Having a bill is to support the initiative but if you have the bill and you don’t have the funding to execute what the bilk has provided, you may still not have made any progress.
“So, the ideal thing is to find a way to have some political will and having the transportation infrastructure as key driver of the economy. If the government picks up transportation infrastructure as key to driving the economy and then the issue of inter connectivity of modes, the issue of bill to support that will not be there because if the political will is not there, the bill might not be able to run on its own.
“So, my thinking is that, first of all, the federal government should look at the logistics and transport as being the catalyst for growth. If they see it as that and know the contributions of the sector to the GDP and make a political commitment to that and follow it up, we don’t require any bill to support that”, he said.
The National Director therefore counseled the federal government on the need to know the importance of logistics and transport to the growth of the economy and to devote a consistent sum of money to the sector as well as come up with a development plan for the sector so that the plan is gradually rolled out and marched by funding commitment and execution.
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