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By Kenneth Jukpor
The federal government has indicated willingness to partner the Chartered Institute of Transport Administration (CIoTA) Nigeria on transport regulatory issues around pricing, safety and security issues.
Nigeria’s Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, made this call at the opening session of the 3rd National Transport Summit of CIoTA earlier today.
Osinbajo, who was represented by the Minister of Transportation, Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, said the Federal Government holds the CIoTA in high regard as a professional body that the country could rely on for direction in transport policy planning and administration.
While describing the theme of the summit, “Regulating The Transport Sector In Nigeria: The State of the Art and The Years Ahead” as apt, the Vice President assured that the Federal Government would adopt the recommendations of the conference as a critical document for future planning in the nation’s transport sector.
“You have a role to produce transport professionals who will drive the economy from the point of view of transport and logistics,” Osinbajo stated while declaring open the three-day summit.
The Vice President opined that CIOTA has an enormous role in developing the transportation sector of the economy. “It is a lead role. As the Institute carries out its statutory mandate of training and certifying transport professionals, as you exercise your statutory powers to regulate and control the practice of professional transport management and administration, your training curriculum and the quality of your graduates are very significant, as the global supply chain goes digital and the world of transport and transportation management thrives on ever-evolving technology and innovations,” he said.
Earlier in his address, National President of CIOTA, Dr. Bashir Jamoh, advocated for a needs assessment of the country’s transport sector, with emphasis on the assets and policies needed for via transport system.
Jamoh stated that the theme of this year’s summit was a renewed call for the country to take stock of its transportation assets to facilitate development and planning in the sector.
The CIOTA President, who is also Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), noted that weak and failed regulatory systems were responsible for numerous challenges in the nation’s transport sector.
He, however, posited that CIoTA would explore its role as a research driven body and its onus of advocacy to provide research based findings and sound policies to address transport sector woes.
His words: “Critical regulatory obligations such as transportation safety, quality control, documentation and licensing, information sharing and data mining, professional education and public enlightenment; enforcement of the rules and standardisation of procedures for seamless collaboration amongst statutory institutions with mandates are imperatives for the making of a sustainable and economically viable transport sector in Nigeria.”
“We believe that proper inventory of our national transportation assets will address the following important concerns: what is our exact national requirement in terms of transportation assets in order to avoid duplication, underproduction or under-investment? We must first ascertain what we need to enable us fill in the gaps.”
The opening session of the conference was well attended by experts and stakeholders in the transport sector, including heads of state and federal government agencies and parastatals, private sector operators, and academicians.
