One year after, FG’s plan on loading limits for articulated vehicles off the radar?
Due to the quantum of allocation spent on repairing and reconstructing federal highways across the country in 2018, Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, vowed to reintroduce a policy that will limit the amount of load that is carried and conveyed by certain heavy duty vehicles on Nigerian roads before the end of year.
The Minister argued then that the initiative will stop overloaded vehicles from plying selected roads to reduce road damage.
He went further to claim that in weeks, an axle load control policy to regulate the tonnage of load being carried by heavy duty trucks and tankers nationwide in accordance with an Act of the Economic Community of West African States, will be put in place.
Though as February last year, the policy document was presented to several truckers and haulage associations including members of the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) , Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) and National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers (NUPENG), nothing was heard on the policy again even as the President, during last week Federal Executive Council directed every cabinet member to prepare his or her handover note ahead of cabinet dissolution.
Business Hilights recall that in February last year; Fashola had addressed members of the NARTO on weight and loading limits, saying “I’m happy to note that in your (NARTO) document there were recommendations. So I will pass the document to our team and they will merge it with the workshop document and we will come to constitute teams that can then work out our immediate resolutions”.
“I’ve written to Mr. President to approve that even from the loading stations, from the ports, from the NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation) depots, we’ll restrict certain vehicles from being loaded beyond a certain point. Mr. President has approved that.”
“But before we start implementing all of these, we thought we should have a workshop with you so that you will know what we want to do. We are not the operators of the business, rather you are. If the roads collapse, you will have no business and we will also not have fuel; really nobody wins.”
“The procurement process for the operation of 10 completed weigh-bridge stations is now in progress. Private sector operators will manage these stations on behalf of the Federal Government,” noted.
However, more than one year on, observers described the scenario as another case of federal Government’s policy inconsistency.
