News
The Federal Government has
concluded plans to cushion the effect of the recent fuel price increase on
Nigerians especially those in the rural areas as it sets to distribute 2,000
buses for Mass transit.
Dr George Akume, Minister
of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs made this known on Friday at
the interactive session he had with stakeholders of cooperative societies in
Nigeria, at his office in Abuja.
Akume explained that the
initiative was a collaboration between his ministry, the Ministry of Agriculture
and Rural Development and other agencies in the government.
He said the ministry took
the decision to pass through the cooperative bodies to ensure the
materialisation of the project, rather than giving out loans to individuals,
which might delay quick execution of the project.
“Basically we do recognise
the fact that when you give out loans to individuals, sometimes you have the
difficulty of recovery when cooperative is involved, it becomes easier to
manage the facility
“The whole essence of the
initiative is to ensure that our rural force has access to a transportation
facility, now that there is a slight adjustment of the price of fuel.
“We do recognise that some
transport businessmen can decide to take advantage of fuel increase over
Nigerians.
“So when this is
implemented, we believe the initiative will do quite a lot to stabilise the
prices for the benefits of the people.
According to him, there is
no way the country can promote development without transportation and this
explained why President Muhammadu Buhari was working hard in the area of road,
rail and air transportation.
Also, Mr Olakunde Jeff,
Project Coordinator, Cooperative Asset Scheme, said the federal government had
given the buses to cooperative societies at a very good price for onward
distribution to interested members of the society.
“The essence of everything
is that now that we have a new pump price, we want to ensure that the effect on
the masses is on a minimal level and that is the essence of the first 2, 000
buses.
The initiative, according
to Jeff would also mitigate the effect of challenges of transportation faced by
rural farmers, even as he assured that they would receive greater attention to
the programme.
He added that members of
the public would also benefit from the project.
“Like in the case of a
van, farmers who are under the cooperative movement will be given the van to
convey their farm produce from the farm to the road and they are expected to
pay back.
“There will be allocation
of buses to other cooperative groups to run transportation businesses, “ he
said.
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