The Rivers State Road
Traffic Management Authority (TIMARIV) has embarked on aggressive towing of vehicles at the expense of their statutory role of road traffic control in Port Harcourt and its environs.
The Tide correspondent gathered that the aggressive towing of vehicles parked on the road was as a result of non-payment of their staff salary since December, 2014.
It was learnt that most officers of the TIMARIV have abandoned their road traffic control duties as they could not perform the job without salaries.
Our correspondent further gathered that the officers charge huge sums of money for any vehicle they towed, ranging from N25,000 and above from their alleged road traffic offenders.
Worse hit were cars parked opposite the SPAR Port Harcourt mall main gate as any exotic cards including Jeeps were towed while the owners were busy shopping at the mall.
An eye witness told our correspondent that an ugly scene occurred recently when some commercial drivers and irate youths confronted some TIMARIV officials from towing a Camry car parked opposite the SPAR main gate as they prevented the officers from towing the vehicle away to their depot.
According to the source, it took some passers-by and people from the mall to quell the fracas which could have resulted into break down of law and order.
Commercial drivers operating within that axis also condemned the activities of TIMARIV officers, saying that they only specialised in towing of vehicles rather than control of traffic which they were recruited for, and that they should be called to order.
Efforts by our correspondent to get reaction from the Controller General of TIMASRIV, Confidence Eke, proved abortive but a senior officer of the Authority who pleaded anonymity said “the towing of vehicles is for them to survive as there was no salary since December, and that of traffic control, you know the job is tedious, so they work for few hours and go home to relax.”