Determined to sanitise the transport system of Rivers State, the government will soon commence fresh enumeration of commercial vehicles plying the nooks and crannies of the state.
The exercise follows the directive that all commercial vehicles should be painted blue and white colours to check the in-flow and out-flow of such vehicles and revenue generation from the transport sector.
Speaking in an interview with The Tide in Port Harcourt last Tuesday, the chairman, National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Oro-Abali Park in Diobu, Comrade Steven Orlu said that the union in collaboration with the state government would ensure that the objective was achieved.
Orlu who advised commercial vehicle drivers in the state to comply and cooperate with the government by painting their vehicles with the prescribed colours noted that it would go a long way to check criminal activities of some commercial drivers, pointing out that existing numbers inscribed on taxi cabs and buses would be discarded and replaced with new ones when the exercise commences fully from August.
He, however, explained that the next week deadline given by the government for the commencement of impoundment and arrest of drivers with unpainted commercial vehicles was to alert and prepare them for the action, saying that the policy was not peculiar to the state.
“The State Ministry of Transport will carry out the enumeration of all commercial vehicles, taxis and buses and ensure that all are painted with the state colours as done in Lagos and other states, including Abuja. It will commence fully from August but the next week period will allow the drivers to prepare on time. We have alerted them,” Orlu stressed.

Shedie Okpara