Tough time awaits commercial vehicle drivers as the Rivers State Ministry of Transport is set to commence enforcement of the painting of the blue-white-blue state colours on commercial vehicles.
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Samuel Egumah announced this in a chat with newsmen in Port Harcourt, recently.
Egumah said the months of grace given to the commercial vehicles drivers would expire, Friday next week and that a special taskforce would be directed to commence driving exercise on any vehicle which failed to comply.
He said the essence of ensuring all commercial vehicles were registered with the ministry to give special code numbers and the state colour print is to identify any vehicles alleged to be involved in criminal activities in the state.
The Transport Ministry’s permanent secretary said all the vehicles used for commercial purpose must comply to the directive, including buses plying within Port Harcourt and it’s environs.
Egumah also explained that the compulsory exercise would also help the public to identify the commercial vehicles from the private ones, saying that many private vehicles are alleged to be used for commercial purposes to commit crime, including kidnapping and robberings.
The permanent secretary urged all commercial drivers operating within the urban areas of the state to strictly comply to avoid any harassment by the government’s taskforce.
According to him, the notice was given since last year to all commercial vehicles drivers to have enough time to repaint their vehicles with the state colours, but said that the grace period would elapse next week.
Speaking with The Tide, some taxi drivers said the five months notice given to them was not enough, considering the hardship in the state.
A taxi driver plying Lagos bus stop to Bundu, one Ita Emmanuel said painting of vehicles costs between N40,000 and N50,000 and that with the present economic situation in the country a taxi driver would find it very difficult to afford such amount of money.
He called on government to give them more grace of another five month to expire in December 2018.
Also speaking, a taxi driver Moses Bowan in Borokiri, Port Harcourt axis also pleaded for more time, saying that the transport system in Port Harcourt had a lot of challenges that collected money from them daily.
He said hardly a taxi driver could go home with N3,000 after all the expenditures on the road including police extortions.
Bowari said it would not be easier for a taxi driver to paint the state’s colour within the period given.

Enoch Epelle