The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Transportation, Dr Magdalene Ajani, announced that the Federal Government is perfecting plans to eliminate multiple taxations in the transportation sector to reduce the cost of doing business in the country.
Ajani stated this at a two-day conference and exhibition organised by the National Transportation Technology Conference and Exhibition (NTTCE) on Wednesday in Lagos.
The theme of the conference is: Intergovernmental co-operation between federal and sub-nationals in seamless policy, regulation and tax regimes: The role of the natural gas expansion programme.
Ajani noted that streamlining the various taxation in the sector was necessary to enhance growth and development.
Ajani said that it was left for a particular level of government to choose the type of segment to cover such as motor parks, licenses for both divers and vehicles, among others.
“What we find happening is that there are multiple road stickers being sold by a different group of people to road users.
” So, this tends to increase the cost of doing business on-road transportation and must be regulated.
“So, those purporting that the Federal Ministry of Transportation gave them the approval to collect money on its behalf is not correct,” Ajani stated.
Also speaking, the Lagos State Commissioner for Transportation, Dr Frederic Oladeinde, commended the efforts of the Federal Government in addressing multiple taxations in the sector.
“We have deployed a lot of technology in Lagos, we are talking about the Cowry cards to integrate the mode of transportation.
“We are looking at integrating timetable of the mode of transport to cut down waiting time,” he said.
The Lagos State Sector Commander, Federal Road Safety Corps, Corp Commander, Olusegun Ogungbemide, said that the corps had been using technology to improve its mode of operation.
He added that technology had helped in reducing response time to crash scene and electronic ticketing in the issuance of tickets for traffic offenders.
