Paucity of Fund, Bane of Transport Sector, Says Amaechi

• Paucity of Fund, Bane of Transport Sector, Says Amaechi

The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi has attributed paucity of fund as part of the major challenge faced by the transport sector in Africa.

Amaechi disclosed this, while declaring open the 2nd Annual General Meeting of the Sub-Saharan Africa Transport Policy Programme (SSATP) in Abuja recently.

The meeting with the theme, ‘Africa’s Rapid Urbanisation and the Response to Urban Mobility in the Digital Era,” had in attendance over five transport ministers from African countries.

According to him, “It is organised for all Sub-Saharan African countries to brainstorm on the way forward on urban transports and mobilities. SSATP is an association that accommodates all African ministers of transportation which Nigeria is hosting.

“The meeting is to ensure that we have a sustainable and organised transportation mode.”

He hinted that, “Funding is the major challenge for transport infrastructure. We need funds to enable us build railway, we need funds to be able to build roads, we need fund in aviation.

“So, our greatest challenge is funding.

This is an annual event that goes round. We are going to discuss what benefit we can get from other countries to be able to transport goods for both business, cargo and man, as passengers and discuss the issue of urbanisation in transportation and intermodality.

“We will exchange ideas with other African ministers on areas they have done well and how to source for funds to build transport infrastructure,” the minister said. Similarly, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Alhaji Sabiu Zakari explained,

“Nigeria bided to host this particular event which we felt it was necessary because of the advantages to be derived by hosting this kind of event.”Zakari added, “so far, we have five ministers from various countries of Africa that has arrived and we are expecting more ministers to discuss issues on internal regional integration.”