National Transport Commission Bill at final stage -Ashafa

Sen. Gbenga Ashafa, Chairman Nigerian Senate Committee on Land Transportation on Monday said that National Transport Commission Bill was at its final stage which would be an umbrella body of regulation to the transport sector.

Ashafa said this during the 2nd Transportation Growth Initiative (TGI) International Conference held in Abuja.

He said that the leadership of the Senate was trying to reposition the sector through the bill, which will bring regulation to the transport sector.

“The Senate leadership in repositioning the Nigerian transport sector, one of the priority bills of the Senate is the National Transport Commission Bill, which the Joint Senate Committee on Land, Marine and Aviation transport.

“That I chair, has just concluded the work, all things been equal we expect to lay our report before the Senate this week.

“If we are doing all these and we don’t have legislative conducive environment you can operate in, it will all come to nothing.

“We are going through the last stage of it, this week we must deliver that final report ,” he said.

According to him, the bill has gone through public hearing, while some green areas has being sorted out by the technical committee that comprises of all the stakeholders.

The chairman said that when the bill is eventually passed into law it will establish a multi-modal transport regulator, which will regulate all the transport sub-sector.

Speaking on the theme of the event, he said smart mobility is a foundation building blocks which include legislation, inter-modalism, multi-modalism, urban development, infrastructure, intelligence transport system, and intelligence traffic management system among others.

However, Dr Aminu Yusuf, Chairman Transportation Growth Initiative, Board of Trustees said that TGI was incorporated by a coalition of public and private transportation stakeholders in 2012 which commenced activities in April 2015.

He said that the vision of the initiative was to harness and develop resource for better transportation future for Nigeria and Africa.