The Federal Government yesterday rolled out 100 buses in Abuja to mark the commencement of the Federal Capital Territory mass transit scheme.
Speaking yesterday at the inspection of the buses at the Julius Berger bus stop in Abuja, the Minister of Trade and Investment Olusegun Aganga said that a large chunk of the buses are made in Nigeria. "A large chunk of the buses you are seeing now are made in Nigeria and one example is from Innocent Motors in Nnewi and we asked him to go and produce more next year," he said.
He said that the intention of the scheme is for passengers to be paying 20 percent less than what they were paying before the 1st of January 2012, adding that they could not roll out the buses on time due to the strike.
He explained that the revolving loan for the scheme was launched in 2010 where about 1600 buses were bought at 5 percent interest rate to be managed by the private sector.
He added that the government last week acquired another 1200 buses that will be distributed across the areas where "we have pressure points in terms of passengers."
Speaking, the President of National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) Alhaji Najeem Yarsin said that the charges for the buses around the routes in Abuja will be between N50, N80 and N100.
DailyTrust