Transport and logistics expert and the Deputy President, Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport; Mr Alban Igwe, has appealed to the Federal Government to grant tax relief to operators of luxury and mass transit buses in the country to ease their businesses.
Alban Igwe, who was speaking at the inaugural conference of the coalition of Association of Luxury Bus Owners of Nigeria (ALBON) and Association of Mass Transit Operators of Nigeria (AMTO), also stated that the road transport sector was facing critical challenges, which required the immediate intervention of the government and other stakeholders in order not to ground the economy.
According to him, transport operators, as major investors in the nation’s economy, deserved to enjoy some tax holiday and fuel rebate like their counterparts in other countries such as the United Kingdom.
He said that the road transport sector was critical to the development of the nation’s economy, contributing substantially to the Gross Domestic Product and should not be allowed to go under. Apart from lack of tangible support from the government, he identified other challenges of the industry as bad road, insecurity on the highway, multiple taxes, sale of fake motor parts and high cost of diesel and petrol.
He also maintained that there is a need to declare a state of emergency in the road transport sector to rescue the industry and by extension the nation’s economy from its current crisis.
“As people are making huge input to the nation’s economy, the transport operators should not be made to pay heavily for fuel as they currently do, which could kill their business,” he added. He, therefore, called on the operators to be united in order to establish a nationally coordinated road transport corporation for ease of doing business. The theme of the conference was “The Nigerian economy and road passenger transport”, he concluded.
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