Shippers Council, FRSC to Clear Trucks From Roads

• Shippers Council, FRSC to Clear Trucks From Roads

The Nigerian Shippers Council and the Federal Road Safety Corps on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will ensure the immediate removal of trucks, tankers and trailers from all highways across the country.

Both agencies had in August commenced moves to have a centralised database for all trucks, tankers and trailers operating in Nigeria.

Speaking on the sidelines of the MoU signing ceremony at the headquarters of the FRSC in Abuja, the agency’s Corps Marshal, Boboye Oyeyemi, said the FRSC, in partnership with the NSC, had identified the major and illegal parks in the country and were set to regulate the sector.

“The implication is that all truck owners must now comply with the Road Transport Safety Standardisation Scheme, it is critical. We need to get it right, all these indiscriminate parking on our highways must stop. So when you know that you are fully registered and can be punished, everybody will sit up. That is the essence of this,” Oyeyemi stated.

The corps marshal noted that the FRSC would partner the council to ensure that the new parks being constructed were appropriately located, adding that both agencies were working with the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing.

Oyeyemi said, “Secondly, the Road Transport Safety Standardisation Scheme provides for all the truck owners to register with the corps. So the regulatory aspect of the corps’ function is to be effectively implemented with the Nigerian Shippers Council, and that is why I am excited.

“On the issue of a database, we are now going to have a joint database. We should be able to tell the country for planning and economic purposes how many trucks we have in Nigeria. We should be able to tell the number of tankers, trailers and trucks of different categories.”

He added, “We should also be able to tell the state of these vehicles. We also need to provide data to encourage government to work on re-fleeting. This is because most of these trucks on the highways are over 30 years’ old and that is why we experience frequent breakdowns, especially in areas where the roads are bad.