Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that the Federal Government’s investment in the transportation sector especially in rail, road, air and maritime is aimed at achieving a transport hub status.
The Vice President said that there can not be economic development without transportation, adding that transportation cannot serve its purpose unless it is available in a safe, affordable and secure environment.
He stated this in Abuja on Monday at the 3rd National Transportation Summit of the Chartered Institute of Nigeria (CIoTA) with the theme, “Regulating The Transport Sector In Nigeria: The State Of The Art And The Years Ahead”.
Represented by the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Ameachi, the Vice President said, “As an indication of the seriousness with which this government takes transportation as sector for driving our economic agenda, we enunciated some creative policy initiatives for funding critical projects in the sector. These include Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme, Bonds, involvement of international development Partners such as World Bank, Africa Development Bank (ADB), IMF, Foreign Direct investment (FDI), Highway Development and Management Initiative (HDMI) and National Tolling Policy. These are yielding tremendous results.”
He said with the recent election of a Nigerian as the Secretary General of the Maritime Organization of West and Central Africa (MOWCA), Nigeria has opportunity to utilize the investments it is making in the transport sector as building blocks to attain hub status, and play big especially as Africa regional trade expands with the implementation of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement.
Speaking earlier, the President of CIoTA, Bashir Jamoh, said the summit was another opportunity for the professionals in the transportation field to deliberate upon the current challenges facing the nation in the sector with a view to proffering well- thought-out, meaningful and practicable solutions for policymakers and decision makers in the collective quest to make the nation’s transportation system more robust and competitive.
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