Edo State Government said it has hired transportation expert to develop a master plan and reform its transportation sector.
A release by the Chief Secretary to the State Governor, John Mayaki and made available to newsmen in Benin-City quoted the state governor, Godwin Obaseki as saying that the expert will manage traffic more effectively within the state.
Obaseki also expressed hope that the state government could work with the World Bank to get financing for reorganising the transport system and getting traffic to flow smoothly in the state.
The governor who disclosed that the transportation expert had already been hired for the purpose added that traffic managers are already been recruited through the ‘Edo Jobs’ programme.
He said the training for the newly recruited staff would be rigorous and that after training exercise the traffic officers would be deployed to the streets for the traffic control operations.
“We have hired a specialist with a lot of experience to reorganise the Edo Transport Management Agency. It will be part of the Edo Jobs scheme. We will be recruiting traffic officers, but we will screen them very carefully and train them in a government facility we have set up.
“We have people who are already working on trying to develop a master plan for transportation in the city and eventually in the state. There is no transport master plan.
“We now have people in the field doing a lot of work to get us data, so that we can have a plan of how to organise traffic and work with the various transportation stakeholders, including bus unions and tricycle unions and everyone who is of interest in transport in the state”, he said.
He added that traffic offenders would be dealt with in accordance with the relevant traffic laws as judiciary with be empowered to deliver swift judgement to traffic offenders.
According to him, We will have mobile courts and some magistrate courts designated for prosecuting traffic offenders. From the measures we have put in place, once we roll out the process this month, we should be able to put a halt to the traffic menace in the state”, he said.
He however revealed that the reform was a short-term fix to the problem of transportation in the state and that the government was working on a long-term plan.
Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date
Open In Whatsapp
