The Association of Maritime truck Owners (AMATO) last
\nWednesday asked the Lagos State Government to meet its executive members on the
\nnew traffic law, or it would withdraw its services.<\/p>\n
AMATO Chairman, Chief
\nRemi Ogungbemi told our correspondent in Lagos that it was pertinent for
\ngovernment to meet with the truck owners before the implementation of the law.<\/p>\n
Ogungbemi said that if after all their entreaties, the state
\ngovernment went ahead to enforce the law as it is, and the environment proved
\nto be too harsh for their business, they would withdraw their services.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe State government should look critically at the new
\ntraffic law to ensure that it does not cripple the operation at the ports, and
\nthus the revenue to the nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that the ports are the second major source of
\nrevenue for the nation and trucks are the movers of the economy. The trucks
\ncarry food items, construction materials and a host of other essentials.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we cripple the movement of the tucks, we are in effect
\ncrippling the economy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It would be recalled that on August 2, the state government
\nenacted a new traffic law prohibiting trucks from moving within Lagos
\nmetropolis between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been trying to hold a meeting with the state
\ngovernment but they keep on telling us that it is not yet our turn, that they
\nare attending to people in batches.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur challenge with the new traffic law is that though the
\npolicy is good, the timing is wrong.<\/p>\n
Government wants to reform the transportation sector and we
\nare in full support, but you can\u2019t put the cart before the horse.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou ought to have put some infrastructure in place before
\nnow.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the infrastructures we are expecting is a place that
\nwould be designated as a central truck park, such that at the time of the day
\nwhen the trucks are prohibited from working, the drivers can park the trucks
\nthere,\u201d Ogungbemi said.<\/p>\n
He also said that another important issue was security.<\/p>\n
Ogungbemi told our Correspondent that the association was
\nwaiting for government to put the necessary machinery in place to safeguard the
\nlives of drivers and maintain the safety of goods on board the tucks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Association of Maritime truck Owners (AMATO) last Wednesday asked the Lagos State Government to meet its executive members on the new traffic law, or it would withdraw its services. AMATO Chairman, Chief Remi Ogungbemi told our correspondent in Lagos that it was pertinent for government to meet with the truck owners before the implementation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maritime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}