REALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1600 Buses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. What would that do or how would that ease the stress the Nigerian citizens are going through right now.
What is Nigeria’s population, and how would the buses be distributed?
From Dailytimes
The Federal Government will on Monday deliver an already ordered first batch of 1,600 diesel run Mass Transit Buses, as a palliative measure for the transport challenges posed by the removal of fuel subsidy.
This is even as the President has directed ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs)to ensure that monthly salaries of workers are paid by January 20 to ameliorate the harsh effect and also that all vacancies in MDAs should be filled.
Following this the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting has been scheduled for January 15 to deliberate on the revenue sharing for the month.
The federal government has also appealed to the Nigerian Labour Congress and all organized sector not to insist to embark on its planned strike as it will compound the sufferings of Nigerians.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Information Labaran Maku, joined by Olusegun Aganga, minister of Trade and Investment and Idris Umar, minister of Transport, who briefed journalists alongside after the emergency Federal Executive Council meeting convened by President Goodluck Jonathan, said the 1,600 mass transit buses formed part of the N10 billion revolving loan set aside by the government to address transport infrastructure in the country.
Speaking elaborately on the issue Aganga said the revolving loan which is payable over a period of five years, attracts a five percent interest rate under the Urban Mass Transit Programme and would be made available to credible transporters, labour unions and other Nigerians involved in transport business.
According to him “we have a duty to turn short term pain to long term gains,” adding that “government has placed order for massive supply of decent diesel buses to solve transportation problem. In the next couple of weeks, there will be sufficient mass transit buses. It will go on for two years”.
“One of the areas based on the poverty and social impact analysis we have undertaken, we expect to see this impact is in the area of transportation and the President made it absolutely clear today that for the first time we want to build a sustainable, robust mass transit programme.
“We stared last year and you may recall that there was a small launch last year when we launched the mass transit revolving loan of about N10billion which was given to the Urban Development Bank and infact that was the beginning of some the actions we started taking as government to reduce the impact of the deregulation.
“That loan is available to Nigerians who have track record in running transportation and is available to them at 5% interest rate. So it is highly subsidized and repayable over a five year period. We have done the pilot stage since it was launched and to date it is working successfully and we will come up with so many ways to make it easier for Nigerian to access this loan and now the time has come to accelerate it and expand the programme. Within the next few days you will be seeing more buses now that we have tested the scheme it is working, the issues that have been faced with the beneficiaries have been addressed and now we are accelerating it to so that we reduce the pains that fellow Nigerians are going through at the moment” he said.
The minister argued that contrary to reports, the subsidy issue actually started in 2009 adding that “we have been undertaking poverty and social impact analysis to see what impact this will have on Nigerians. That is because we realised the pain it will cause and today’s meeting gave us the opportunity to empathise and to know that it was a very painful decision”.
Speaking on the convening of the emergency meeting, Maku said “the meeting was called to deliberate on very crucial national issue particularly on the deregulation of the downstream sector of the Nigerian oil industry” adding that “Mr. President called the meeting to expedite action on the measures to cushion the effects of the removal of fuel subsidy”.
He said it was regrettable that “previous government has postponed deregulation, the intended benefits did not come true because for as long as government continued to monopolise the sector, no private sector will come in and invest”.
“Haven taken this plunge, to go back will be to cripple the economy that is why we are calling on our citizens to bear with us. In no time, the prices will come down unlike in the past where marketers used to hoard fuel because government was subsidising, that would no longer be the case. The customer will be king now, because if they don’t sell, they won’t recover there money,” he said.
The information minister further appealed to Nigerians for understanding saying “our country is in a difficult situation and we are appealing to the citizens to appreciate this difficulty. With the measures we have taken, we are confident that we will correct the imbalance in the economy”.
The minister added that “there is no way a country will survive with N5 trillion debt and uses N500 billion to service debt. The entire capital budget is completely borrowed and if it continues, the economy will collapse and companies will be forced to cut work force”.
On the declaration of strike by NLC
He said there is on-going dialogue with the organised labour stressing that no reasonable government will deliberately inflict pains on its citizens.
In his own contribution, Umar said government has completed the dredging of the lower Niger noting that the Lagos-Kano-Jebba rail rehabilitation project will be completed by the end of March.
The minister added that depending on availability of passengers, “Lagos to Ilorin rail transport will resume soon”.