The Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) has disclosed that plans are underway to launch a multi-billion naira project that will change the face of transportation system in the country.
According to the association, 300 new vehicles have already been purchased for the pilot project and the launching slated for the first quarter of this year while other batches of vehicles would be introduced as the project continues.
National Secretary General RTEAN, Comrade Yusuf Ibrahim Adeniyi who disclosed this in an exclusive interview stated that with this Nigeria will join the league of advanced countries with decent transport system devoid of rickety vehicles and fraudulent vehicle operators known as “one chance.”
Comrade Adeniyi disclosed that the vehicles would be given as loan to graduates who would become corporate drivers to man the vehicles.
According to Adeniyi, this new development will gradually phase out the era of rickety vehicles currently used as commercial vehicles on the roads, adding that every passenger that boards the vehicles would be covered by an insurance scheme to be introduced by the union.
He stated that members of National Youth Corps would be employed and trained to ensure that computerisation of passengers names and their next of kin to make payments in case of any emergency.
According to him: “We want employ youth corps members who would operate the computers. As you board the vehicles, your name is written in the manifest and thereafter put in the system. Before the vehicles move, they would send you a notice that this vehicle you boarded, is insured.”
Adeniyi hinted that before vehicles can be given out to the corporate drivers, they would have to register with the union as well as provide their guarantors, saying that experts were on standby to test the drivers in order to guarantee their competence.
The National Secretary General stated that the vehicle loan scheme will be in different categories namely: people that would plying within the cities and those that would engage interstate services.
The RTEAN chieftain said the union has devised means of monitoring all the drivers on duty from the headquarters as well as the list of the passengers and names.
He said once it is entered, the names would be reflected on the computerized dashboard at the association’s headquarters.
The union’s Secretary General explained that the latest measure would automatically phase out the issue of “one chance” currently plaguing commuters in the country.
He further assured when the scheme is launched, new vehicles would arrive every 45 days while registration, documentation and disbursement of the vehicles would take two weeks before they are allowed to ply on the roads.
He noted that members of the RTEAN who are the initiators of the scheme as well as unemployed youths would be the beneficiaries adding that the unemployed graduates would become a veritable resource for the scheme as the vehicles are all computerized and would better be handled by literate operators.
