Nigeria’s lower chamber of the National Assembly (NASS), the House of Representatives has resolved to investigate alleged disappearance of 10,000 public transit busses provided by the federal government for transport service within the FCT.
The motion by Rep. Ikenna Elezieanya (PDP-Imo) moved at the plenary on Tuesday, was adopted by the House.
Moving the motion, he 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.
Elezieanya added that the provision of the busses 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.
Elezieanya 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.
The lawmaker 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 the risk of riding in commercial vehicles operated by kidnappers, armed robbers and bandits.
Elezieanya 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.
