12th April, 2022
By Femi Ogunshola
The House of Representatives on Tuesday mandated its Committee on Federal Capital Territory to investigate the alleged disappearance of 10,000 transit buses provided by the Federal Government for Nigeria’s capital city between 20003 and 2014.
The lawmakers took the decision to investigate alleged disappearance of transit buses provided by the Federal Government for transport service within the FCT following the adoption of a motion by Rep. Ikenna Elezieanya (PDP-Imo) at the plenary on Tuesday.
Rep Elezieanya had in is motion noted that the provision of long buses in Abuja, apart from creating jobs and generating revenue, was targeted at alleviating the sufferings of the citizens
He added that the provision of the buses were designed to ease the commuting challenges of civil and public servants to and from their offices to ensure effective discharge of their duties.
He said that between 2003 to 2007, 5,000 buses were provided by the Federal Government to assist and complement the efforts of government workers in accessing their various offices within the FCT.
He said that between 2010 to 2014, the Federal Government, in a bid to effectively improve public service delivery in line with global best practices provided an additional 5,000 buses for the transportation of civil servants.
He expressed concern that all the buses, amounting to 10,000 provided by the government were gradually disappearing from the roads and were not being effectively managed by the FCT administration.
He added that this had led to the scheme not achieving its core objective, which is alleviating the transport challenges of the masses, especially in these trying times.
He said that the citizens who were denied these services were daily faced th the risk of riding in
commercial vehicles operated by kidnappers, armed robbers and bandits.
He said that there was need to recover the buses and make them operational to serve the core objectives for which they were provided.
The House therefore mandated the Committee on FCT to investigate the alleged disappearance of transit buses and report back within three weeks for further legislative action.(NAN) (www.portal.nanews.ng)